It's a narrative flourish irrelevant whose accuracy is irrelevant to the pitch, except that it sounds attractive to say "customers want this" vs "customers are powerless to reject this". For a business, it matters that the trend exists; the cause doesn't matter.

Hmm, the cause does matter. If customers want it and you're not giving it the risk is they'll go elsewhere to find it; that's why it is sold in that way, to apply pressure: "if you don't do this you'll lose customers" hits the businesses who are already succeeding.

If it's "other companies are selling the idea to customers that they should move to a subscription model" then the company you're pitching your subscription service assistance to can decide to promote the purchase model instead of going along with convincing customers to buy in a different way.