this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
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It's not about defending valve, it's about not buying epic's pro consumer rhetoric. They have a worse product, a history of anti consumer practices, and you shouldn't let them use you to gain leverage to be able to abuse you more.
Steam is DRM, but so is Epic. And if the two, Steam/valve have contributed meaningfully to open source software and the gaming industry. In a world where capitalism rules, Steam/Valve is hardly the worst option.
I for one look forward to the Steam Deck; my HP Reverb G2 became a paperweight when it lost support overnight after a Windows update, and while it's not completely open, I expect valve's headset to be supported for as long as the hardware survives.
Fuck DRM, but if you want to pay for convenience and don't care about owning your games, Steam is the best option.
That's the problem. EA, Nintendo, Blizzard, etc all use to be "cool" pro-consumer companies until they suddenly werent. I hate ppl getting so use to convenience until its too late and then when we all own nothing we bought anymore and everyone is standing around going "How did this happen?"
But I want to keep using the convenience until it's not. Nothing lasts forever.
I don't buy games on steam so I can have them in the future. I buy them on steam so I can play them today, so I can easily reinstall them, so I can have my save files synced across devices and and reinstalls.
The day steam gets enshitified where it isn't giving me that convenience is the day I stop using it. Most of my library was purchased for <$10 in summer sales, I've played their worth and then some. If Valve disappears tomorrow and my steam library with it, there's only a handful of games I might repurchase, I wouldn't be that devastated.
I don't make a living off it, my life doesn't depend on it, I don't need it... it's entertainment and convenience that I want today, and valve allows me to play more and more of library on Linux every day, which is great because I've completely uninstalled Windows.