I'm not sure I agree that recurring subscription pricing was "extremely obvious from the beginning" from my experience with it over the past three years. To me that's not any more obvious than alternatives like: selling for a one-time purchase, or raising funding to keep it free for now.

It was a solo founder for a long time. I didn't realize he'd hired other people before today... but you gotta pay those engineering salaries somehow, I guess.

But I agree that the new pricing model announced today feels off.