Ah the enshitification of all things progresses like a mold in a petri dish.

And I would hazard to guess that OP hit the nail on the head... it's the same cycle every time. Great software builds a community based on quality products and grassroots word of mouth. Founders either get greedy or choose to retire. Founders sell company to greedy corpo who doesn't give a shit about the product or the community. Greedy corpo strips the software and company for parts...

Personally, I'm building a dragon horde of my most needed software, buying a perpetual license where possible, keeping local installers and turning off automatic updates (and no, open source software isnt safe either...)