but this is not a tourist/residence differentiation. but more like buying in bulk or not.

i have lived in vienna for years and never got a yearly subscription but bought weekly or monthly tickets as needed. and many others do as well. a better comparison to the yearly subscription is the monthly pass which is ~50€ and transferable. so two or more people can share it, and that may turn out cheaper than even a yearly pass in certain circumstances.

i never considered monthly or weekly passes to be only for tourists. they go from the beginning of the week or month which is not flexible enough for most visitors. only more recently a more flexible variant has been introduced that goes 31 days starting any day. those are obviously more useful for visitors but they cost the same.

that said, looking up the tickets now it appears that anything but the yearly subscription is considered for visitors. when i lived in vienna this was not the case. and in other cities it still isn't. tourist tickets were/are those valid for 2 or 3 days and they often are considerably more expensive because they include things interesting for tourists that i never needed even when i was just visiting. everything else was/is for locals.

it is also worth noting that vienna in general is considerably cheaper than many other european cities. which is probably why i never bothered getting a yearly subscription myself.