@such
Yea, you are being a bit of a downer. :smile: It's easy to be jaded nowadays. Try looking at it from a different perspective:

how is that different from the Before Times when they were also selling these games, and also maintaining them?

It's not. GOG is simply reaffirming their roots, which they admittedly had drifted away from for awhile. That they have refocused on maintaining good old games should be seen as a good thing!

has that "this is extremely uncertain and unstable as a business that they have no idea how to run to turn a profit" subtext

I had to investigate this a while back when someone posited - without proof - that GOG was going bankrupt. It turned out they had one bad year and had recovered admirably from it. Unless things have changed in the last year, GOG is quite profitable. Check the CDPR financial statements.

Just because you don't think that game preservation is not profitable does not make it so. Perhaps it's not your priority, but look around: with all the crap being brought to market focusing on ever-increasing glitzy graphics rather than engaging storylines, excellent game mechanics and careful performance optimization, retro is in -- in all fields of entertainment, not just video games. People are reaching back for the quality they or their parents remember. Clearly, there is potential profit to be made.