Not to sound like a decrepit, rambling corpse about it, but back in my day Word used to be a pre installed program that came with your computer, if you were running Windows.
No subscription. Just program.
On your computer. You got to use it forever and ever and never had to worry about it going away.
Because it was physically on your computer. As a program. That you actually owned. Not because you got it separately, but because it was a standard inclusion with your computer.
I'm sorry but I'll just never get over it. I remember when companies cared about their products being usable out of the box. I remember when our things belonged to us.
Old man shaking fist at cloud, wherein the cloud is the background of the Windows 98 logo.
Ok but let's not over romanticize this. Did Microsoft do this because they were nice people back then? No.
They did this because they wanted everyone in the world to come to rely on this software, to think of it as indispensable to life. Then when they started charging, the market was right there and they could just collect the money.
WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT AI COMPANIES ARE DOING NOW. Same playbook. In a couple of years, everyone is going to be posting wistfully, "remember when we could access the lies, plagiarism, and sycophancy bot for free instead of paying $75 a month for it???"
