I'm old enough to remember that time. People did up grade. Some of them rushed out to buy the latest version when it was released. Some of them waited until they got a new computer. Many of them tried to not upgrade until someone using the new version sent them a file and then they couldn't open it thus forcing an upgrade. A few only upgraded every other version.

I wasn't an automatic everybody upgraded on day one like subscriptions are, but it amounted to similar: regular upgrades over time.