This has already been discussed in great detail in two other huge threads.
The change is because Opus 13 took seven years to come out, meaning finished changes people were asking for were locked away on three developers’ computers for years while no one else could use them.
We don’t want to do that anymore. We want to get away from doing monolithic releases and feature creep, and instead put out new features as soon as they are ready, without them being held back because some other feature isn’t ready yet. The new model means there’s never any reason to hold back a change which is ready to use.
We also don’t want new users saying “it’s been a few years and the next version must be out soon so I’ll wait” which meant several people waited multiple years for that new version they assumed was only a couple of months away.
Pricing hasn’t increased in years and years, despite inflation, and the new model is designed to be about the same total cost while making pricing and what you get for your money more transparent, and allowing us to put out changes sooner.
You can still buy a version and use it forever without paying another dime. Discounts for upgrades work similarly to before. All that’s changed is a smaller amount is charged more often, if you want to always be on the latest version. And “more often” still means annually at most.
Nothing in the new model is abnormal or would surprise anyone looking at a new tool rather than comparing it to how things were and assuming change is always bad or intended to fleece users rather than improve the way we do releases.
Most comments have been supportive and understand why we are changing to the new model, but it feels like we’re being held to a different standard to every other software company by some.