Steam will drop support for Windows 7 and Windows 8 on January 1, 2024

I also imagine that it's harder for VAC to detect cheats in those relatively old operating systems. I know for some hacks you have to run certain versions of windows with known vulnerabilities to evade detection.

98% to be precise.

But still, with 132 million active monthly users, that leaves 2.4 million people who now can't access their games. So I disagree with that being "not worth the effort".

what effort? avoiding newer APIs?

They'll likely be playable under Proton, but of course that won't be available for Windows users, somewhat ironically.

This is already the case. People are generally buying those games for the licenses and then using mods. For example, you can buy Falcon 4.0 on Steam, but the only reason to do so is to legally play "Falcon BMS", an otherwise standalone free game using Falcon 4.0 assets and code.

Computer security isn't a fantasy to anyone who isn't an absolutist. There is a spectrum of security.

It's also possible that Win7/8 users won't even notice and continue to use it, and receive updates. I don't think the Steam client has separate builds for different Windows versions, dropping support can mean many things.

- Blocking access from Win7/8 entirely, for any installed version of the client on Win7/8.

- Staying on last client version which may or may not continue to work with the server.

- Losing the ability to receive oncall customer support if the software is not working properly, but continuing to get updates that may or may not work with your old system, and maybe slowly losing features, including potential security issues.

I'm still using my Google Pixel 3 phone, Google has dropped support in oct 22, so no new Android versions or security updates for me, but it runs fine and I'm not planning to replace it anytime soon. If it breaks or leaks my data, I won't complain to anyone. Of course, client-server software is an entirely different thing, but you get the idea.

End of support notices are always incredibly vague, because the software vendors don't want to make customers who won't upgrade their devices angry without a valid reason, so often they won't cut access if there's no big security issue, but they also don't want to tell everyone that it's still probably ok to continue using the old versions, because moving on brings performance improvements which are good for users and maintaining old software becomes increasingly difficult over time.