How about making the subscription for a “professional tier”. I’d probably jump on that. I think charging the main user base would effectively kill off most of it to the extent that Flight Simulator would turn into the biggest mass exodus since Twitter.
I kind of like the model they have in place now, where it’s just huge economies of scale that allow license sales and marketplace tokens to fund what’s really a service model. I’ve been buying add-ons just to support it. I haven’t flown most of the planes or airports in the Premium Deluxe, I’ve never flown a race in Reno, and I’ve been getting my scenery off the Marketplace, but I know if people stop buying this stuff, the 10 year party of new sim stuff is going to come to an end, the photogrammetry and weather spigot is going to shut off, and we’ll be reminiscing about this whole thing like Microsoft Flight.
Even this causes issues though. People love to defend their “free” aircraft from any sort of perceived negative feedback as if they were literally gifted to them. As if something is free unless you hand somebody cash, and in the same gesture get something placed into your other hand. But really, Microsoft is just deciding for you which add-ons you should buy as we’ve already paid for these aircraft and continue to pay for them, some people more so than others. Maybe I don’t want a rushed third party add-on that isn’t up to the standards we’ve seen, and instead would prefer Microsoft spending more on developer hours for the features we were promised a couple years ago that are still missing. I’d rather watch a review and see, “Oh the visual model is not Flight Simulator quality with its texture and decal work, and its missing a number of functional features. I think I’ll pass on this one, and wait for this instead…” But what was supposed to be a commercial third party product was bought by Microsoft, using your money. Will there be the same incentive for continued development on that product, or will it become just a marketing gimmick that’s soon relegated to a dusty corner of the hangar when the next shiny thing is dangled in front of us.