This is a bit of a weird derail, presumably because you don't like the idea of the Playdate, but it's worth pointing out that the subscription, in the case of Playdate, works much like milk: It's better as a subscription.

But Playdate is both parts. It's a device built to host a subscription, but the subscription itself only works to support the device. The device is built with deliberate constraints to provoke creativity in game design, and that creativity in game design is what you subscribe to. It's the milk bottle and the milk.

The thing is that no one is buying a Playdate without being aware of what they're getting. There's no hidden catches or unadvertised subscription fees. You can, if you want, just buy a Playdate and sideload content onto it, although you won't get the next season's games and the thing that makes the device special in a lot of people's minds. Without it, you will never get to play Lucas Pope's next game. Without it, Lucas Pope would never make a handheld game operated by a crank.

Does this mean anything to you? Maybe not. If it doesn't, don't buy it and don't subscribe. You probably also don't subscribe to my favourite magazine, Scrimshander's Monthly. People have different interests, and find lots of different things cool, and that's okay.

Can’t see how it would be; you pay up front to own (lifetime access without need to check a DRM server) X amount of games which are released to you over time. If you want another Y amount of games, you can pay again, or you can just keep what you’ve already bought.

Closer to their point would be the battery or the mechanism behind the crank that will inevitably fail.