He doesn’t have the hardware to support non-streaming so he’d effectively have no way of playing them if the service continued to get worse. I suggested he pay upfront for hardware that can play the games he wants without being dependent on nvidia
That’s fair, but he would be able to play the games in the meantime. And since hardware generally gets cheaper as time passes, if he could set aside more than the subscription fee each month to save for his own hardware, he’d be able to game in the meantime. And if he ever had to cancel it, he’d be closer to being able to buy his own hardware than he is today - meaning more time total spent gaming.
Worth considering he could also use GeForce now while saving for a Steam Deck. Used ones go on sale for under $300 pretty frequently.