zlacker

All of these can be predicted, more or less, over expected product lifetime and added to initial product price. Nothing stops from manufacturer to say "10 years of security updates" on a box, and then you're on your own.

>>precom+(OP)
Right, but very few customers are willing to pay that upfront price to avoid a cloud service. Most consumers don't care.

>>precom+(OP)
And then you lose out to the competitor who only factors in 2 years of updates. Who then loses out to the competitor who doesn't factor in costs at all.

And then suddenly that last company finds itself successful and needs a plan to actually stay in business, so they update their EULA and start pushing a subscription service.

Or, more commonly, they just go out of business.