Make it a legal requirement that if they brick the devices they owe the purchaser a refund for the value of any parts of the hardware that are compromised, minus some depreciation schedule. Then they have an incentive to keep running that service even if it's not currently making them any money. If they go out of business, that obligation is the same as any other on the books - assets will be sold off to cover the debts as best as possible, or some other agreement reached. Patching some code so that the system isn't bricked when the server shuts down is almost certainly cheaper than giving everyone their money back.