The company would have had to carry a reserve to refund everyone who ever bought the app (which is equal to their total revenue). Or the buying company would have cover that. Either way it'd be an impossible liability.
Bricking hardware people paid for without offering a refund is potentially illegal, even US companies like Lowes realize this, hence why Lowes refunded all hardware purchases of Lowes by Iris Home Security Systems for customers they could track down.
It would be an impossible liability if everybody refunded. In realty I’d bet less than 5% would
It should be an impossible liability to intentionally brick devices that people paid you for.