I’ll start: printers.
I bought an HP in March 2020 when my job went remote and HP bricked it remotely after only 100 pages because I wouldn’t sign up for their subscription program. Ended up trashing a perfectly good printer.
Luckily my library’s close by and I can print there remotely.
My complaint: I don’t want to pay every month
Your solution: Play for only 1 month
Problem not solved. I’d much rather buy a game where I get to play as long as I want.
Idk man you’re making it out to be a lot bigger problem than it is. There isn’t a single “buy once” game out there that is even remotely close to beating WoW or even XIV in terms of playtime or playtime:cost. As long as you’re having fun playing them and have stuff that you want to do in them, they are essentially an unbeatable value.
Even terraria and FNV don’t come anywhere close to matching the playtime I have in those MMOs, although terraria is so cheap that it probably beats everything on cost value.
Stardew Valley, GTA5, Cities Skylines. All games that you can basically buy once and be done. I can put them down, come back in 2-4 months, and pick up right where I left off.
Also here’s Half Life 2 in a browser: https://hl2.slqnt.dev/