665
Maybe a bit optimistic, but one can dream
(slrpnk.net)
The Duff CEO with a Windows-Logo on his forehead: "Gamers use Windows because of its' user experience not our de facto monopoly."
Next Image: Duff CEO with Windows-Logo in front of a "Out of Business" sign. Subtitle: "30 minutes after SteamOS is released"
Edit: Yo, I'm not saying this is gonna happen. I just want to say that Windew's UX sucks ass.
Why do steam users act like their game company and their billionaire is somehow their friend?
Because it's a Linux distribution. They're forced to be our friends because of a brilliant legal tactic that has been working marvelously. For Steam itself we have to trust a billionaire pinky promise that he won't enshittify. But if Linux becomes a major gaming platform, it could be a major turning point for free software adoption in general.
So steam has had 20 years to enshitify, in that time they have always remained a privately held company and have made choices to ensure long term growth. I imagine at some point (like after gaben hands over control) they could go public and obtain their very own collection of worthless bloodsucking vampires, but i imagine that would be quite awhile, and hopefully by then they will have removed windows death grip from gamers throats.
Enshittifying is usually the process of monetizing a platform that is running at a loss to build a user base. Steam is not running at a loss, they are making a killing as is.
Thats not always the reason why a platform monetizes poorly, thats the most common reason, but there is always room for people to get greedy and begin demanding short term profits, being privatly held is a decent barrier to this process though.
Yes capitalism is a shit garbage system, steam got lucky and started their platform before others noticed the market would exist and could grow organically. The root of enshittification is that is how the game is played today; a few companies all have to operate at losses in a game of "investment capital runway chicken" to attempt to become a monopoly and then rug pull their user base to monetize.
Can you imagine a world where governments gave 2 shits about their people, identified this as a losing game plan for the world, and came up with some form of legislation against this kind of market nonsense. Fuck it would be awesome to see real businesses growing naturally off of success, and not synthetically off of capital. Yes I realize that wont happen. God damnit i fucking hate unregulated capitalism.