No one buys software because they like software. People buy software because it’s solving a problem. Ideally they are buying the software because it’s the most cost effective way to solve the problem given their circumstances. (Just telling a human to go solve a problem for you is often the easiest, but very expensive way)
SaaS as a delivery model has advantages that either help make the solution easier or more cost effective. These can make it a better value than other types of software. For example:
- there’s nothing to install because I access it through a web browser. So getting started is easy
- there are rarely hardware or software requirements so the Potential audience isn’t limited
- the “state” and data is Usually stored in the cloud, so you can use the software from pretty much anywhere even changing machines and still have access to your data.
To be clear there’s are advantages with on premise software as well (data doesn’t leave the premises).
The question of what delivery model you should use needs to be entirely framed with what is the problem your customer needs to solve and what is the most cost effective and easy just way for them to solve it
Even if it's not the right approach, the points above do make it unavoidable in some organizations, mostly bigger non-tech companies. You can also see this with role combinations, increased developer responsibilities, and reduction in formal training. At least this is what I've seen in my company.