I'm very well-versed in the field, what DAW(s) are you referring to? Cubase, Ableton, FL Studio, Logic Pro X, Bitwig, Reaper, etc. are all flat fees. Studio one has a subscription model but it's tied to access to splice assets and it's completely separate from their one time fee model.

Logic Pro iPad is a subscription. It remains to be seen if the desktop version goes this way.

Reason is pushing a subscription model hard.

Online services like Splice are sub based for sounds & samples.

Bitwig is a yearly fee. You don't have to upgrade but you're probably going to have issues with newer OS versions before long if you don't.

Overall I agree it's sill a better space than most for software you actually can own.

>Logic Pro iPad is a subscription

That's the exception that proves the rule, and it's not really that popular though. They're pushing it more than there's actual update, and I think it's more for the "wanna try a music app" crowd atm (than the 'DAW using crowd'), mostly due to the limitations of the iPad.

Oh yeah, I forgot that Logic Pro iPad is a subscription. I honestly don't know who the target audience is for it. I'd think most hobbyists could probably just get away with GarageBand on the iPad which is free.

When traveling I've actually sketched out music in iPad GarageBand then brought over to my Mac and opened them directly in Logic X. It works pretty flawlessly.

Looks like Native Instruments is pushing a subscription too:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/subscription/...