The title of this thread is "Companies fret as costs soar for software subscriptions", and this comment thread delved into cloud SAAS providers with a flat org structure.

Steam/valve was brought up because they have a successful cloud SASS model with no subscriptions oand a flat org structure.

Xbox live has a subscription fee since day 1, is maintained by MS (the definition of "non-flat organizational structure"), and is vendor locked. Not even remotely comparable.