Yep. It’s bonkers. I don’t mine paying for software I use. I particulsrly like paying small developers.
I’ve been a multi-year subscriber to M365 for my family (just renewed this week). It’s a great deal for us. The cloud storage is worth the price on its own (up to 6 TB for our family). We have Windows and Macs in our house, along with iPhones and iPads. The flexibility to install the applications on all of our devices and sync files and share specific folders between the devices is very helpful for us. Personally, I think this is one of the best subscription deals available now.
We use the products in the suite heavily (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook). I think they are the most comprehensive office applications on the market. Yes, there are other cheaper options such as LibreOffice, but it does not offer the capability of the applications and cross-device convenience that M365 does in my opinion. Excel in particular is unmatched for power users in my opinion.
We don’t have many software subscriptions (I hate them). This is one of less than about 5 that we maintain. But it is worth it for us.
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May I ask what you pay?
I am not @mcdoma, but I am doing the exact same (M365 Family). I pay about 50 to 70 Euro per year for M365 Family (regular price per year: 130 Euro or about 98 Euro discounted right now). How? Those subscriptions are on sale on Black Friday and sometimes on other occasions at Amazon or other retailers (voucher eligible for a renewal of 12 months).
It is a steal (especially in combination with the Cloud storage) and to answer this topic’s question: I switched to the Mac back in 2006. That is including iWork. I switched back to Microsoft Office (because of being a heavy Excel user and because exchanging files with users on different platforms) after a few months and have kept using it. I do not plan to change this any time soon.
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I’m not saying that because I’m not qualified to give a judgement on that aspect. I just have a general dislike of how Microsoft stuff works that isn’t just the basic app. The whole MS Updater thing (though I think there are now App Store versions).
Also… I have a pathological dislike for Microsoft on account of the **** I have to use at work. Teams could be good if they just cared about executing their vision with some quality. OneNote is not down on quality, it’s just never been updated in years. And then there is the striking inconsistency between their apps. Basic text formatting is different in every one of their apps. Heck, they can’t even get all their title bars the same size or have consistent window close controls!
Mind you… Apple are starting to follow their lead on this.
This is so much more eloquent than the rant I just had on another thread. The only fixed feature of “subscription” versus (so-called) “pay once” is choose not to pay again versus choose to pay again. Everything else can vary on either side.
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Fun fact… due to a change of circumstance, I’m going to need a spreadsheet I can develop and maintain over a long time with low friction. I’m shuddering at the thought of using Numbers for it. I get by with a simple set of calculations that takes me maybe an hour to figure out and it’s done, save for trying some what-if values.
But actually spending days, weeks, or months developing a significant set of calculations across related sheets and daily updating it in Numbers? The editing experience is the worst part.
Do people reckon Libre Office Calc (I don’t want or need anything else) is up to the job? I’m used to using Excel on Windows so its my benchmark.
Sure, Calc can do it. I’d probably vote for Google sheets though personally.
I’ve never seen a use for IA writer
Why do you have to convert Word documents to markdown? In my mind either the item is of a class I keep in markdown or it’s not and if it’s not I don’t need to convert it because I don’t get things that need conversion that way.
Just out of curiosity, in using M365 are you using mainly OneDrive or iCloud Drive for your document storage? I have had many frustrations with OneDrive and just wondering if it is me. I would love to have a seamless integration of Excel & Word while continuing to use iCloud Drive.
What? You’re asking for thoughts and recommendations before you make a decision? How quaint 
Perhaps I’m recalling incorrectly or I’m being too generous with myself, but I believe I’ve asked for advice on more than one occasion. I least, I hope so! 
If not, bad on me!
Given what I assume to be your work from prior posts, you should use something the rest of the world uses. Libre or CollaboraOffice are not that. Apple products are not that. You really only have Google and MSFT. Use the one that they people you work with most use.
I have found a new love for office because it seems like many of the AIs and especially Claude like to work in Office.
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I have a lot of Word documents. Been using it since the 90’s. When I work with Claude it uses less tokens working with a markdown doc than a docx. IA Writer acts as a bit of a converter between markdown, docx and vice versa.
The first native to the hardware app that adopts Google Docs document tab feature will get my loyalty. But Word can burn in the fires of multiple afterlifes.
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I am using iCloud Drive for my document storage. If I want to access OneDrive, I am mounting it with Mountain Duck. The OneDrive client for Mac did not work very well for me, either. I have used the OneDrive cloud previously for doing backups with Arq. Given the recent Backblaze discussion, I may start doing so again.
We might need an emoji for British humor . . .
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Do you need a Spreadsheet. could Soulver do it for you?
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Umm… excuse me, but that would be British humour 
- humor is, by definition, not British
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I recently switched. I was driven primarily by email issues w/ iCloud mail. Ended up w/ my domain at MS 365 Business Standard for email and having all the apps on my desktop is a nice bonus. Have ported all my photos and emails from Google (personal, not workspace) and files from Google Drive > OneDrive. Dropped my iCloud+ down to regular old iCloud 50GB. Will be dropping Google One later. Net savings around $11 annual. But now I receive email from Gmail addresses without having them drop into the spam folder.
The main PITA part is the migration. Already familiar w/ the MS Office suite so just a brief re-training process for the ol’ muscle memory.
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I actually do need a spreadsheet. At the moment I am trying out Synology Office.
In the back of my mind, I’m still holding the ‘reserve option’ of just subscribing to M365 and claiming it as an expense.