Your model is what sustained the personal computer industry (as standalone apps) for 30+ years before subs and webapps became so prevalent over the past decade. You might benefit from paying a bizdev type person for a couple hours (or enough for a plan) to figure out how to get some recurrence out of those apps. People absolutely paid for new versions of Eudora, for instance.

Generally speaking, don't most users prefer one-shot payments, even if it is a relatively large amount, rather than monthly subscriptions? So it doesn't require followup mental maintenance... You just pay once and forget.

They probably do prefer that, and also probably want free updates forever.

But as a maker, recurring (read: predictable, continuous) revenue makes a software business easier to sustain and gives incentive to grow.

I was thinking the same way, but once a client explained that at least for them it is the same - they periodically roll out the major version update which is paid, and users pay upfront a lump sum the amount they had to pay anyway if it was a monthly subscription during that period.

Gotcha, makes sense.

I suppose subscription model makes more sense for apps that basically reside online or at least interact with a web server.

How you make lots of small products solving a single problem well is cool though! I could see some of these kinds of concepts evolving into a decent subscription business.

If you bring back the Dashboard I will throw money at you.