Software "is" not anything. It's what we make of it. Many users and developers are staunchly opposed to a software service industry. Personally, if my only option is ever to make products that require subscriptions and continuous upkeep to use, I'd probably go work in another field altogether.
Saying something like that makes me believe that you must work deep within the bowels of an entrenched corporation, insulated from revenue needs. Anyone who has ever had to pay employees, sacrifice time from other projects to do unplanned-for maintenance, or scrounge around for tedious grunt work during a slow season would never say something so ridiculous. I bet you also swore you'd move to Canada if Bush/Obama got elected.
I should have clarified: by "continuous upkeep", I don't mean patches and feature updates; I mean the type of perpetual update model you see in things like Creative Cloud and Facebook games.
I make software because I enjoy it, and the type of software that I enjoy making either takes the form of one-off entertainment (games), or tools that expand your range of abilities (apps, mainly non-networked). If I couldn't hope to make money off these anymore, I'd probably lose my creative drive. (I am also a one-man developer. A corporation would obviously have different priorities.)
This is basically the Chromebook version of the future, and it's why I support Apple's native-first model over the alternatives. If I buy a hammer, I want to own it, not have it streamed to me over crappy H264.
