I think there's a bunch of different things conflated here:

• valve is generally doing a lot of good things, even things that basically don't benefit them at all
• gaben is a Billionaire with all the billionaire things
• people love valve for all the good that they do
• a bunch of people are pointing out that valve is still deeply involved in their gambling economy; in fact it seems to be a significant part of their profit margins
• there's no +/- on this. The good valve does doesn't displace the bad they do.
• a bunch of things can be true at once
• we should praise them for the good an criticize them for the bad
• people do not stop their opinion usually, it's just public focus that shifts to a new focal point.

What I'm trying to say is, from what I've seen most people are glad because valve is doing a bunch of good things while also being aware of the bad that they do. It's just more useful to criticize Microsoft or nvidia for doing net negative by a mile, and the public focus can only be so nuanced. Also people hesitate to punish valve for being bad, considering they might be one of the least bad big tech companies.

That's what I think anyway, and that would mean your opinion isn't unpopular just that the smaller parts of it interact in a different way than you describe.

People praise a company that does a lot better than basically any other company. Not shocking and only makes sense when the norm is such shitty, anti-customer behavior. If the bar weren't so low, you'd never hear this much praise for any company.

+1.

I don’t trust Valve as far as I can throw them. I use, and appreciate, their service and products, but it is an exchange. I’d drop them like a rock as fast as they’d drop me.

And I’m certainly not going to overlook the concerning parts of their business.

Yet some online seem to think… I dunno, they’re on the same team?

I just don’t get the parasocial relationships people get into with corporations. But then again, I don’t get a lot of stuff.

Eh, not really unpopular opinion. Pretty much every post on lemmy about valve vs. competitors always mentions that steam wins by simply being the only storefront that understands the value of customer satisfaction and retention

its like the pope or obama. unfortunately it should be typical for what it is but everything is so trumpy that it seems awesome.

Yachts are not a bad thing in and of themselves. If they run on fossil fuel, sure, that's not great. But someone has to build, staff, and maintain those yachts and that means they actually have a kind of trickle down effect.

It's much worse when billionaires just sit on their money and let it increase passively by investing. That money is unavailable to anyone else. Or when they use it to gain political influence. But when billionaires actually consume, the problem with them being overly wealthy is lessened somewhat.

I still believe that nobody earns more than a billion dollars but we need to focus on the important things. Keep money out of politics and redistribute wealth. Let rich people have their playthings.

I agree and am with you in believing that too many people see them with rose colored glasses.

Some truth nukes 💣:

• Steam is a storefront that is very good for consumers and that has a [benign] monopoly according to almost every metric.

• They exclusively sell licenses, not ownership, of games.

• Their pioneering and aggressive defense/proliferation of "loot crate" gambling mechanics has been one of the worst in gaming, ever.

• Valve as a game developer is functionally dead. Their brand image is built on 4 IPs from two decades ago.

• Gabe Newell has credibly been cited as being 99% hands-off with the daily operations at Valve for years, and if you do love Valve/Steam for what they do, it's an insult to the actual staff to credit their work to some CEO.

They're a game company. It's not worth this much of your life.