Because it's often not worth the investment. You would pay a shit ton for a one time conversion of data that is still accessible.

Still accessible for now and less likely to be accessible as the clock ticks and less likely that there is compatible hardware to replace.

If it isn't worth the investment, then what's the problem here? So what if the data is lost? It obviously isn't worth it.

If the software became open source, because the company abandoned it, then that cost could potentially be brought down significantly.

OK but that isn't a counter point to what I said. If the hardware never fails, there is no problem either. What does that matter? And who cares if it was FOSS (though I am a FOSS advocate). What if nobody maintains it?

It doesn't matter because these aren't the reality of the problems that this person is dealing with. Why not make some FOSS that takes care of the issue and runs on something that isn't on borrowed time and can endure not only hardware changes but operating system changes? That'd be relevant. It goes back to my point doesn't it? Why not hire this person.

Clean room reverse engineering has case law precedent that essentially make this low risk legally (certainly nil if the right's holder is defunct).

You are also missing the parts where functional hardware loses support. Which is even worse in my opinion.

I didn't miss the point. I even made the point of having at least ~20 years to plan for it in the budget. Also the hardware has already lost support or there wouldn't be an issue, would there? You could just keep sustaining it without relying on a diminishing supply.

Or are we talking about some hypothetical hardware that wasn't mentioned? I guess I would have missed that point since it was never made.