Steam is a digital store and a consumer buys software from it. You can twist words and describe it using all sorts of other marketing bullshit but it's mostly in bad faith.

It's why the NZ's consumer guarantee's act has terms like what is "reasonable" and The Disputes Tribunal (somewhat equivalent to small claims court) will often consider things from an average consumer perspective.

HN is full of technical power users so it's common for the comment sections of these stories to devolve into a "well actually" nitpick of language use but most sane countries consumer protection laws are intentionally not designed this way.

Otherwise you can probably extrapolate anything into a "subscription" service. Your bank and most credit cards are structured in a way that looks like a subscription, but an average consumer doesn't consider their plastic cards a financial "subscription".