I don’t know why they actively refuse to do the same with microsoft products.
Maybe the subscriptions are seen as them “keeping up with technology”, which isn’t the case for the bus pass?
For a while, my university was offering a degree project on cryptocurrencies, for example, because cryptocurrencies were seen as the future for a time, and they would be falling behind if not. Even though it was a few years after cryptocurrencies were going out of vogue (this was before NFTs came about). So they wouldn’t mind that, but the bus pass would be instead seen as a waste of money if they just handed it out.
Maybe the subscriptions are seen as them “keeping up with technology”, which isn’t the case for the bus pass?
For a while, my university was offering a degree project on cryptocurrencies, for example, because cryptocurrencies were seen as the future for a time, and they would be falling behind if not. Even though it was a few years after cryptocurrencies were going out of vogue (this was before NFTs came about). So they wouldn’t mind that, but the bus pass would be instead seen as a waste of money if they just handed it out.