Comment by lapcat

> I wonder what would happen if you tried selling software the old way again. "Buy our software! Pay once. We'll mail you out a USB stick with the program on it. Our software does not access the internet."

FWIW all of my Mac and iOS apps are upfront paid, with no telemetry or server-side component.

Of course I don't distribute them via snail mail though.

I'm doing pretty well. I'm certainly not rich, and probably not making as much money as corporate software engineers in the US, but I'm doing better financially than the majority of people. It's not impossible to follow the old business model.