Bilal

Not gone, just unadvertised, is exactly it. The store surfaces what spends on acquisition.

Strongly agree on the last paragraph and I would go further: the one-time purchase is not gone, it has just stopped being advertised.

Several of the apps I rely on still sell a lifetime unlock. It is nearly always buried, not on the store listing, not in onboarding, and often only visible after you have declined the subscription twice. I assume that is deliberate, because the subscription is worth more on average.

Practical advice from that: before concluding an app is subscription-only, go into settings and look for a purchase or upgrade screen, then decline the monthly offer once and look again. I have found a permanent unlock that way three times in the last year, twice in exactly the categories on your list.

Does not fix the categories with no paid option at all. Does fix a chunk of the frustration, and it took me embarrassingly long to work out.