Remember when Google’s motto was “don’t be evil”? Remember when Facebook was innovative? Remember when [insert any post-IPO platform] was privately owned?
Look at the past and future, not just the present. Corporations eventually go sour, and fight against the very users that they were supposed to serve. Give Steam/Valve enough power and it’ll do the same. We don’t need corporations serving us software; we need open systems.
That said Valve is situationally useful here because it’s eroding Microsoft’s power.
I mentioned IPOs as an example of things making a company take a 180°, from “we luuuv customers!” to “customers are things to be milked, not humans to care about”. There are a thousand other possibilities - being bought by another (and more abusive) corporation, being inherited by arseholes and/or fools, or even a change in the mindset of its current owners.
There’s absolutely nothing preventing all those shitty outcomes. Nothing. And when one of them happens, the suckers who “buy” games through the platform - including myself, and probably you - will be shown a middle finger, and hear a moronic “ackshyually u didn’t buy the games lol you licensed them lmao”.
I think you’re both right really. I don’t trust Steam the company I trust Gabe Newell the person. Once he’s retired or passed on they could easily go ipo and begin enshittification.
Remember when Google’s motto was “don’t be evil”? Remember when Facebook was innovative? Remember when [insert any post-IPO platform] was privately owned?
Look at the past and future, not just the present. Corporations eventually go sour, and fight against the very users that they were supposed to serve. Give Steam/Valve enough power and it’ll do the same. We don’t need corporations serving us software; we need open systems.
That said Valve is situationally useful here because it’s eroding Microsoft’s power.
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That’s how publicly traded companies work, profits above all else.
Good thing Valve isn’t publicly traded!
Post-IPO? Valve is privately held. Which is why they make strategic decisions that stakeholders would never approve of.
I mentioned IPOs as an example of things making a company take a 180°, from “we luuuv customers!” to “customers are things to be milked, not humans to care about”. There are a thousand other possibilities - being bought by another (and more abusive) corporation, being inherited by arseholes and/or fools, or even a change in the mindset of its current owners.
There’s absolutely nothing preventing all those shitty outcomes. Nothing. And when one of them happens, the suckers who “buy” games through the platform - including myself, and probably you - will be shown a middle finger, and hear a moronic “ackshyually u didn’t buy the games lol you licensed them lmao”.
You can’t trust it.
I think you’re both right really. I don’t trust Steam the company I trust Gabe Newell the person. Once he’s retired or passed on they could easily go ipo and begin enshittification.