For StarCraft 1 specifically (and its Remastered version), a few us have been building a custom server/launcher[0] which should at least ensure that the game/community doesn't completely die out. However, we still rely on Blizzard's online services to verify the in-game purchases, like HD graphics (the game will automatically stop rendering the HD graphics if you didn't log into Blizzard's services in the last 30 days).
It remains to be seen how this will be handled by Blizzard if (when?) the time comes.