It was a different age, with different products. I’m sure there are still products built the old ways, but Joel was writing before SaaS and CI/CD and endless roadmaps.
He seems to have other posts on the lifecycle of software and product budding. Maybe it wasn’t mainstream then but some folks were doing meaningful parts of it.
Both products were initially once-off purchases that you had to install and run on your own infrastructure, and with new, major versions packed with new features that you had to buy if you wanted, but could ignore if you didn’t.
The move to a SaaS model came years later for both products.