@kaliranya From the original blogpost right before mentioning Steam "This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they're locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they're locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit."

Steam Sales were new and insane, like 70% off on games that came out months ago. idk how it worked, maybe Valve ate the losses or maybe the publishers didn't care.
Sales aren't a big deal anymore; theres one now, its the same as the last one. The only cool thing Valve is doing is hardware, but Deck is just another way to use Steam. It doesn't enhance or expand the Steam experience. That's just default and expected.

The core difference here is Valve is not a public company. They have no shareholders. They can spend millions of dollars on a Left 4 Dead 3 and then scrap it and then put out a DOTA card game and then pretend it doesn't exist. No shareholder would allow EA or Activision to make something like Alyx.