The reason why Cubecraft prefers subscription ranks over permanent ranks is very simple. They get more revenue from subscription ranks than from permanent ranks. And if you think this isn’t true, then why do you think they removed permanent ranks from Java and replaced them with subscription ranks almost 2 years ago, and haven’t gone back?
And yes, it is annoying that we can no longer buy permanent ranks, because that is WAY CHEAPER for us players! I probably wont pay for any subscription ranks anymore for this very reason. For example Obsidian rank on Java is 13,85€ per month. It doesn’t seem like a lot at first glance, but that is 166,2€ per year… And to me the ability to vote and have some cosmetics definitely isn’t worth that much money.
But from Cubecrafts point of view there really is no reason to go back to permanent ranks. Because even though many will not buy these new ranks, there will still be a lot of people who will still buy them. Or atleast this is how things have went on Java after they replaced permanent ranks to subscription based ranks.