There are a few challenges.

Products will always have a distribution curve for its users. Both on usage and value they perceive or extract. Power users are effectively discounted by regular/infrequent users.

Businesses have recurring costs and cashflow is king. Predictable cashflow is a huge advantage. Subscriptions help map costs back to % sales. Salaries are regular costs.. this is the largest bind.

It can take a while to extract value from a customer or recover sales/marketing expense for that user. A larger upfront fee is a higher barrier to entry and many sales won’t happen. It’s why the refund guaranteed stuff blew up, but died now with subscriptions.

Even when you pause a subscription there is often a business cost involved. Or worst case it’s a liability because you have more to manage that is effectively serviced at your expense.

Consumption based pricing works well for commodities where like for like competition exists and it’s a market driven price. Cheaper can mean same value, just at a better price/discount.

If different options exist, at some point the winning options will take the market.