The unspoken issue at the heart of this is outdated copyright laws. These things were fine for books and movies that can be endlessly reprinted for a century but have become obsolete in the digital age.

Thankfully software is infinitely copiable so even if you lose access to your digital purchases, you still rightfully purchased a licence for it and have recompensed the original creators. Thus you can legally make use of a backup of that piece of software (ie roms+emulation) just as you would if you had a physical version of it.

I am against software piracy in all its forms and if you can still pay for a digital copy of a game, you should.