Many years ago, I had an XBox 360 with a valid credit card attached. With a ten year+ gap of service, I then connected my account to a new Xbox. Somehow Microsoft was able to still use and charge a ten year old credit card account even though I have had many replacement cards in the intervening years.

I've had new credit / debit cards show up in the mail... and then vendors tell me they automatically updated my card info! What's the point in expiring a card if they can just get the new info automatically anyways?

They make money. Under the guise of providing continous service.

If my bank did this to me I'd tell them I'm just going to charge back everything they automate.

When you request a new card you have to request that they don’t update merchants. Claim it was stolen or lost. Not all banks let you but most have this as an option when talking to a real person.

Yeah, you have to use something like Citi, Capital One or privacy.com and explicitly turn the card off.