Excellent analysis, LLuck.
Those of us who strongly prefer -- and purchased -- the desktop version are injured to some extent when Intuit stealthily morphs that purchase into a subscription. And on top of that injury, Intuit then adds insult when they tell us here that it's all for "improved security".
The economics for Intuit are pretty straightforward: with subscriptions, they get 1) steady revenue to pay owners and development staff (regardless of the value of recent development), and 2) fewer old versions for support staff to have to deal with.
In their deliberations over this change, though, they probably made an explicit assumption regarding "loss of users" over an unpopular set of new "features". It appears that their assumption for that loss was "not much". Possibly the large number of users responding on this thread will cause Intuit to reconsider that assumption: There really is a market for secure, standalone accounting software, and Intuit (or someone else) can reach that market by offering a standalone product.
