I'm not saying that I'm approving this company or their products, but I can definitely get behind the idea of paying for OS updates.

Part of the premium we pay for an iPhone or a Mac is to finance the development of iOS/MacOS. We get the updates for "free" but we actually already paid them when we paid the device.

Meanwhile, here it's clear: you pay the device, and then you pay for the OS.

The opposite being the product like with Microsoft/Google.

Or relying on the goodwill of other people (FOSS).

If I take the example of Kagi, I saw how much impact as a customer I have/had on the product.

Meanwhile Microsoft/Google/Apple don't care.

And on FOSS I could _just_ do the things myself, but I'm not an OS dev and I already spend some time on other FOSS projects (I'm writing this message on an Linux computer). Donations are great but they are not reliable/predictable and they don't give you more power to influence the product.

Regarding your question "Why do I need to pay to retain data that is on my own device?", according to their FAQ: "Without an active subscription, certain core services and privacy features will be limited. To keep your MC03 fully functional, secure, and up to date, an active subscription is required." https://www.punkt.ch/products/mc03-premium-secure-smartphone

So the phone won't brick itself and you won't lose access to your data.

But the company itself give me a bad feeling, like Proton, trying to surf the hype and doing lots of virtue signaling.