If Microsoft has been sufficiently successful in moving corporate customers (by far their biggest cash cow) to a rental model they might decide to phase out support of the older stand alone versions in order to move the consumer base to rental or on-line products, thereby reducing Microsoft's costs and significantly improving the bottom line as well as assuring even greater locked in cash flow.
Pulling all the pieces together here, kevs's anxiety relates relates back to ryck's quoted
Office 2016 suites, including Office Home & Student and Home & Business, include applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote; they are available as a one-time purchase for use on a single PC or Mac. The applications are not automatically updated; to get the latest version, you must purchase Office again when the new version becomes available.
and while I could
maybe see Microsoft charging for incremental security and other up
dates to the Office 2016 suite (They've already stopped supporting earlier stand alone versions.), it doesn't seem likely that they'd require a new $130 purchase for each one.
With Office 365, upgrades are always included with your subscription. (Emphasis added)
taken together with your "
With the rental pricing model the update/upgrade line gets blurred beyond recognition because
version upgrades are considered an update the previous version" sure sounds like Microsoft's copywriters have tripped over that blurred line and conveyed the erroneous impression that incremental security and other up
dates to Office 2016 will be treated as if they're functionality up
grades cum
dates.
But as you said, "As with all such questions, only those in the front office at Redmond, Washington know the answer to your question with any degree of certainty."
Personally, though, I'll bet against kevs's fears if the price is right.