Why can't software like a music player or playing podcast function perfectly fine w9thout updates for 10 years. We had same audio formats for 10 years, and same OS audio API.
Why you might need updates: 1. New functionality (if you need a particular feature that was not available before) 2. Security issues
These are not industries where people make programmer wages. Combining all of the required software costs is very expensive. Subscriptions more closely match the model/needs of the producer, but they are often quite bad the consumer.