this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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Thinking about it, what people ascribe to Valve and its success as morally good, is actually just the market niche for mutual convenience, which Gabe Newell et al have cornered rather nicely.
It's not (inherently) morally good that Valve has chosen to build its vast hoard of wealth by implementing online software distribution on Windows, it was convenient because Windows had fuck all support for it, and Linux was still niche on desktop. For us, it was convenient to purchase games without leaving home or queueing for hours to get limited copies.
It's not (inherently) morally good that Valve has chosen to adopt Linux, fund open source projects, and provide a slither of repairability to its systems, it's convenient to leverage self-repair to reduce RMAs on hardware, and Linux was convenient because Microsoft already felt threatened by Steam's stranglehold on software distribution which was evidently a cashcow. For us, it's convenient to be able to repair shit than wait for weeks for a replacement, and Linux is convenient because its reduced bloat and free licensing reduced the up front cost for the Steamdeck.
In a different scenario, Valve could have been no different from EA, Activision, etc. and none of that is due to Gabe's ideology moreso than the fact capitalists are named after capital, not morals. Once the markets change for that equation to no longer make sense, there is nothing fundamentally different about Valve to not turn this around.
His $500million Yacht is the best reminder that capitalists have an allegience to their class, not some imagined duty to "PC Gamers"
There's one thing that's a bit different: Valve isn't publicly traded and beholden to stockholders. That doesn't inherently make them good, either, but it does mean they CAN be good, while publicly traded companies really can't.
Maybe not beholden to shareholders external to the company, which the alienation thereof only encourages short term profit extraction, but Valve has shareholders within the company which are of course still profit-seeking. Valve's business model will continue to adapt towards that goal, regardless of moral imperatives.
I disagree on "good", I do enjoy steam and the hardware, but it's still an exploitative business with iffy ethics, just less so than Amazon. Like I said above, it simply fills the niche of the market for videogame hardware/software which wasn't exploited for a long time, if not ever. convenience for consumers is just smart business practices.