Gaming has had subscription since at least the early 2000's. WoW, XBL and Eve are some examples off the top of my head. Some even required the purchase of additional hardware like the PS2 network adapter. Anybody remember Final Fantasy XI or the now defunct Matrix MMO?
Today every console has some form of online subscription. If anything, gamers normalized the online subscription model.
I agree on the maintenance costs and do believe that the costs were justified but I can't sell my horse armor and map packs from the same era at a GameStop, now or then. Doesn't matter if I have a digital or physical edition. We normalized this.
Xbox Gamepass and the Nintendo Switch online console collections are the future regardless of what we want. We are simply rehashing the launcher wars with individual titles at this point. We traded ownership for convenience and somewhere along the way we became comfortable with the same IP being remastered, re-released, remade or reimagined on a yearly basis.
Just look at overwatch and counter strike. New game comes out and the developers "erased" the old game/version. We are reaching peak games as a service where you pay for everything but own nothing. I was never interested in Stadia but wasn't their whole business model a subscription service with individual game titles as microtransactions?
I had a CD collection back in the day, still do, but it's getting harder to find somewhere to play those discs. Most new cars don't even come with a CD player. So now I can either repurchase on some digital platform or pay indefinitely for a streaming service. Both give the content without ownership. Why would gaming be different?
Look at what Nintendo did with the switch. Every physical copy has a unique license built in. So if you buy a used game, there is a real possibility that it won't play despite having it physically in your hand. We've had always-online-DRM for offline single player games for years now.
Again, I agree with you. Its just that this has been coming for a very long time.