Maybe not the same, as its more of a service contract. At work, we have had a site which has been closed for 2 years. for 2 whole years, every week the vending machine company arrive, try to get in, can't, ring us, and we say "that site is closed".
Well we finally after 2 years got them to remove that site from their system?
Their response? to remove ALL food from ALL vending machines at all our sites, to remove the coffee machines, and to remove the water coolers. The water coolers are especially egregious, as they just sit there doing nothing. they are from tap water, so not even replacing bottles etc.
Sometimes subscriptions are useful. I wish the BBC TV licence in the UK was a subscription. I cannot justify spending £150 on a licence for an entire year, just to watch a month of shows. but other times it sucks. I just want Microsoft office. I don't care if it will cost me £200. Right now my favourite game is subscription based, but i don't think i can justify the £9.99 a month, or £50 for a whole year. £50 for lifetime access? maybe.
With the current situation, no way you are getting a lifetime access. Companies have discovered that people actually pay for subscriptions even if they don't add anything worthwhile to keep you renewing.
You are just renting and there is no option to buy.
Dont think they can, it's a real key for the software, the distributor just gets them bulk and through "grey" channels. There's a whole writup on it.
Regardless i used to full pirate the whole office suite and hadn't had an issue for 20 years, I'll just go back to that if they somehow decide this key is illegitimate