That is the move by Mojang that I didn't understand. They were about to be paid 2.5 billion. Why not offer 1 million for the signed contract? They could easily afford that, and with his financial troubles at the time, Julian would probably have signed it.
And he'd have missed out on his subsequent personal growth, and we wouldn't have gotten this beautiful story, and the universe wouldn't have gotten the End Poem, but Microsoft would, and the world would have been more normal, predictable, corporate. But he would have been able to eat and pay rent.
