How Frustration With Subscriptions and Software Discovery Led Me to Build Permisoft
Permisoft started with a simple observation.
Over the past decade, it feels like software has steadily moved away from ownership and toward renting. Products that were once purchased outright are now subscriptions. Applications that could run entirely on a user's machine increasingly require accounts, cloud connectivity, recurring payments, and acceptance of whatever direction the vendor decides to take the product.
As a software engineer, I understand why some of these changes happened. There are plenty of products where subscriptions make perfect sense. If a product relies on cloud infrastructure, collaboration features, AI workloads, hosted databases, or ongoing operational costs, recurring revenue is often necessary.
What I started questioning was why the same model was being applied to software that could realistically operate without those costs.
At the same time, I had been working on software projects of my own and ran into another problem that I think many independent developers eventually discover. Building software is difficult, but getting people to discover it can be even harder. Search is changing rapidly. Advertising is expensive. App stores are crowded. Distribution has become one of the biggest challenges facing independent developers.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized these two problems might actually be connected.
Users are looking for alternatives to subscription-driven software. Independent developers are looking for ways to get their products in front of users. Yet there doesn't seem to be a modern marketplace built specifically around software ownership and independent software distribution.
That realization eventually became Permisoft.
My goal is not to replace every subscription service or argue that all software should be sold the same way. I simply believe there should be a place where developers can sell software that users genuinely own, and where consumers can discover alternatives that prioritize ownership, privacy, local-first functionality, and long-term control over the tools they use.
Permisoft is still in its early stages, but the vision is straightforward: create a marketplace where software is treated as a product again, not just a service.
One thing I'd be careful with:
The interesting question may not be whether people prefer ownership over subscriptions.
It may be whether they're actually searching for software through that lens when they decide what to adopt.
Those sound similar, but they can lead to very different marketplace decisions.
That's a fair point, and honestly one of the questions I'm trying to answer by building Permisoft.
My current belief is that most users don't explicitly search for things like "perpetual license software" or even "software ownership." They search for solutions to frustrations they already have. Things like "one-time purchase password manager," "Microsoft Office alternative," "offline note-taking app," "local-first software," or "software without subscriptions."
What interests me is that many of those searches seem to lead to the same destination. The user may start from cost, privacy, ownership, offline functionality, or avoiding vendor lock-in, but the software they're ultimately looking for often shares similar characteristics.
Whether that translates into people intentionally seeking out a marketplace built around those values is something I still need to validate. It's entirely possible that ownership becomes a secondary benefit rather than the primary reason someone discovers a product.
That's part of what makes the project interesting to me. I think the underlying demand exists. The question is whether users think about it as "ownership" or through a completely different lens.
That's exactly why I'd be careful.
The challenge isn't whether the demand exists.
It's the decision that follows from the signals you're seeing.
I wouldn't try to unpack that properly in a thread.
If you're curious about the tighter version, drop your email and I'll send it over.