Im saying they got years of enjoyment out if it and they probably didn't expect servers to actually stay up forever.

It's not stealing in that sense. You're enshrining "devs can't sell a 1 time payment license to an ongoing service" as a right and I simply disagree.

Your framing relies on devs not being allowed to sell this license. I don't think banning them is healthy.

If they marked the buy button "license" like California will soon mandate, would that suffice for you, or do you actually demand a perpetual experience?

Edit: also corps frequently short each other very slightly all the time. No one makes some outrage about small amounts like that.