We only have subscriptions for businesses (there's a whole separate purchase process), regular licenses cover 3 years worth of updates and are perpetual. That's a similar time period between license purchases to before ST4. We announced this change at the top of our ST4 release post and describe it when you purchase a license.

If your regular license only covered a year of updates that's certainly a bug and I suggest contacting sales@sublimetext.com so we can sort that out.