Right? Also one "hack" I use quite a bit is to subscribe for when I need a tool and then unsubscribe when I don't. I use privacy.com to create virtual credit cards that can only be charged once, or a certain amount, or for a certain period of time.
Of course you'll need to backup your data, but honestly that's good practice anyway. I just search Google to ensure the service makes it easy to unsubscribe and easy to export your data.
Many projects have phases where you use certain tools extensively—no sense in continuing to pay for say an online video editor on the months you aren't, well, editing any video.
Lets say I wanted to make a simple ball bouncing animation using Rive for my app. That would take me around 8 minutes to make. Rive editor is an online tool so I'd have to pay $39 constantly to have access to it if I wanted to adjust it at some point as the data is stored online.
Lets say I wanted to create a more complex animation. That might take me 2 days. But I've been forced to pay for the entire month and I need to pay forver to have access to it if I cancel.
It's the market distortion created by people who work for free and expect to get stuff for free
It seems like OSS is more and more bigcorp making money anyway so probably that perception will keep shifting until we're back to normal conditions and OSS developers will be able to earn a salary from their work.
Who said anything about free? Have you used Rive Designer? It's $39 per month for a basic animation DCC tool, which is based online and your files are locked away so you can only alter them if you keep paying perpetually. For a solo developer doing basic animation now and then, the price is absolutely insane for the stuff you get out of it.
Once upon a time middleware like this would have been "Call Us" with a custom 5 figure license and royalties.
Now it's not even an hour of a single developer's time cost per month and you get complaints.