@Tempes

In the real world, I'm an academic librarian. The "pay for content" + "pay for subscription" model is pretty much how everything works in most libraries. For example, we subscribe to an ebook service for an annual fee. We also "buy" ebooks, which are ours forever. But we can only access those ebooks as long as we continue paying the annual fee to the ebook service.

Another example: in universities (especially research universities), professors are expected to publish original research in professional journals. Many of these journals are available for annual subscriptions that run in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per year. Because publication often transfers copyright to the publisher, the professor is unable to use his or her own work without the library purchasing a subscription to that journal. So that's an example of someone creating content, but they have to license it back.

Anyway, I suspect there are many other real world examples of "purchasing" something that you can't use without a subscription. I don't have a cell phone, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (not being sarcastic, being serious), but I'm pretty sure you pay for apps, which you can only use if you've got air time. And apps aren't required to use a cell phone, but they are convenient.