The article about the "subscription" HP ink made me realise something.
Subscriptions aren't a new idea at all. You could subscribe to paper magazines. And you got to keep them.
I'm just clearing up my old house and it's filled with tons of old tech magazines. Lots of useful knowledge here. Wanna know how Windows and Mac compared in 1993? It's in here. All the forgotten technologies? Old games, old phones, whatever? You'll find it.
Now, granted. You'd only get one magazine a month. Not a whole library of movies or games or comic books.
But still, the very definition of subscription has shifted. Now, the common meaning is "you only get to use these things as long as you're paying". Nobody even thinks it could mean anything else.
Besides, it doesn't only apply to services that offer entire libraries. Online magazines still exist in a similar form as the paper ones. But you only get to access them while your "subscription" is active. Even the stuff you had while you were paying.
BTW I'm not throwing my old magazines away. I won't have the space, but a friend is taking it all. If they wouldn't, I'd give them to a library or let someone take them. The online and streaming stuff of today and tomorrow? In 30 years it'll be gone, forgotten and inaccessible.
Pretty much, modern subscriptions are leases/rentals.
ETA: some at least are like the traditional method of subscription, such as Humblebundle's choice that lets you redeem your game well after you cancel.
But are the games you redeem even yours?
The whole idea of licensing access to a game/software is another topic entirely.
To give the spiel on my thoughts: A purchase of a "perpetual license" like on Steam is not exactly yours, unless you can play it Offline without restriction. Which means you may need to use a Goldberg crack.
Legal arguments may differ, but in my view your purchase receipt represents your right to use that software, but if it relies on continuous connection to Steam features (e.g. Friends list, cloud saves, re-downloading games later after purchase) or third party services (e.g. Anticheat, matchmaking servers, leaderboards, mod distribution, updaters), your continued access to those services for free is in exchange for you complying to their rules, and can be revoked if you contravene them. Steamworks is DRM like anything, but if it is possible to play without it then it's "yours", is how I summarize it.
Last time I've got something on Steam, the receipt literally said "Thank you for your subscription".
Well I bought something today, it did say "Thank you for your purchase", for what it's worth.
Check the PDF in your email (if they're still doing that). But maybe they've changed it back. It's been years since I've used Steam.
Since we're in a community about events making us (regrettably) admit that Stallman was right, I don't think freedom 0 alone is enough for the concept of ownership.