The subscription thing is key, although maybe a generational thing. I would happily pay a flat $60-100 for each major version upgrade I choose to adopt, but I won't just give them a direct monthly tap into my bank account.
It's purely a theoretical, since nobody has offered me a choice of that model - either I'm a source of ad revenue whether I want to be or not (Chrome, FireFox, Safari), or I'm in a captive ecosystem where I'm already paying a premium (Safari, Chrome for android)