All I know is I'm still fully addicted to Counter-Strike a full 8 years after I first played it so Steam is alright with me. I don't even remember paying the original fee (maybe $50 years ago), and I don't need to mess with discs or reinstalls. Just download Steam, login to my account and BAM! all my games are downloaded and ready for playing, no patching no mess. Genius.
Now if Valve wanted $50/year to maintain my access to CS:S (something I can see Google doing), I'd find a new game.