Purchased Software Is Not What You Think You Bought
Microsoft is forcing Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac into view-only mode because of TLS certificate expiry, effectively bricking paid perpetual licenses. The HN thread is furious, with one commenter calling it 'organised crime' and others pointing out that CA TLS creates inherent finite lifetimes for any software that depends on it. This is not a bug; it is how the system works, and most users did not understand that when they paid.
The pattern here connects directly to the broader subscription vs. perpetual debate. Perpetual licenses were supposed to be the 'you own it' option, but they carry hidden dependencies on infrastructure the vendor controls. When that infrastructure changes or expires, the software stops working regardless of what the license says.
This is also a quiet argument for why subscription models exist from the vendor's perspective: ongoing revenue funds ongoing certificate and infrastructure maintenance. The problem is customers were never told this trade-off explicitly.
So what?
If you sell perpetual licenses or one-time purchases, you need a clear policy on infrastructure dependencies and how long you will maintain them. Customers who feel deceived become loud, and this Microsoft situation is the kind of thing that gets screenshotted and shared for years. Be explicit about what 'perpetual' actually means in your terms.