I feel the issue isn't the $70 which isn't a big deal (or shouldn't be) but more the point that other editors like VSCode are available now and have the backing of a big company like Microsoft. The biggest criticism of Sublime is that it often feels like it has been abandoned. It goes 6+ months without a peep from the developer. This can make people uneasy.

I prefer Sublime over VSCode, Atom, etc. but at the end of the day VSCode is free and still very good. Perhaps not quite as fast as Sublime but it also offers other features out of the box which Sublime doesn't so there is a trade off. Is Sublime "better" than VSCode to justify $70? That is something that can only be answered on a case by case basis I think.