[fruzz]

What's considered cheap is relative. $12 a month is more accessible than lump sums of $500. It may be cheaper to have your own hardware in the long run, but not everyone is able to afford seeing that through.

As for laggy, Cyberpunk runs orders of magnitude better through Stadia on my only computer - a dated Core i3 laptop - than natively.

You're not wrong. Running it yourself is obviously better if you have the hardware. It's just there is a value proposition with platforms like this that I think can make it so more people can play AAA games than before.

[ste11a]

Stadia the service is free. It's a free console. If you pay $29.99 for Madden 2021, you can play it for free forever (as long as Stadia exists). The ~$12 is a subscription that adds games to your library and is completely optional.

[tmpz22]

Modern consoles all have pay-as-you-go-plans for something like $30/mo. I hate the renting aspect of it, but they provide accessibility to the platforms to those who cannot afford it.