Readers should not be renters

Fully agree with this title. The SaaS model works perfectly for the world of business where your subscription keeps you at the forefront of what the service offers.

As a consumer though, per major version feels.. fairer?

I don't know how else to describe it really, but it doesn't feel fair to subscribe to a tool.

Take Sketch's subscription model, it's a hybrid of the two approaches and works fantastically well. You pay the version that's available today and it's yours forever. If you want the cloud features, then you pay your monthly 'subscription'.