It comes from the 2000-2009 era, and primarily from 2001-2004 (if memory serves) when Johan was regularly putting out patches for EU2. Not just bugfixes, but major updates with improved game mechanics and new events, that would in modern Paradox terms be considered a DLC that costs money.
I can't really blame Paradox for monetizing their support for their games, though I strongly dislike how far they've gone. I hate the infinite DLC model of game releases that they started adopting with EU3 and fully implemented for CK2 and later games.
For the sake of addressing the actual topic of this thread - I guess I'm mildly against the subscription scheme. I'd never use it which is why I don't care all that much. The default-renew setup is an abomination; renewing for another month should require action by the customer each time. If Paradox's current customer base likes it (referring to comments about the EU4 version of this), shrug, OK, give them what they want. It's been clear for about 12 years now that I am not part of their target customer base...