It’s been a long time since Salesforce helped change the world of technology by claiming it was going to end software. Its model of selling access to a managed service that was hosted on the cloud (what we generically call software as a service today, or SaaS) didn’t end software of course, but it did turn the world away from buying software in a box.
The trade-offs were simple. Software offered as a service was cheaper up-front, but could cost more over time. In return, vendors promised regular updates and you never had an out of date version. No matter how you feel about the subscription economy, the shift from buying Microsoft Office in a box to renewing your Microsoft 365 subscription online is now part of our past.