Financially Valve exists in an incomparably different space compared to companies like Take Two that actually have to make games to make money.
Yes, they are loot box whores but so is everyone else.
Steam is a community, social media, and a store. The community is what they built and that community is extremely loyal. That community is also what developers are paying for.
In Gaben, we trust. I have 20 years of experience saying Gabe won't fuck me over to increase EBIDA by .5%. Are they perfect? No, but they are lightyears better than most of their competitors except GOG in terms of putting consumers first.
I keep giving Valve my money because they keep giving me good value for that money and a trustworthy environment to spend that money in. I have no loyalty. I also buy games from Humble Bundle and GOG.
I'm not excited about the prospect of losing my 4000 games but the literal only options available for consumers right now are "Pay money and get a game that we can take away at any time, fuck you over, do all sorts of bad things, and we demonstrably hate you", or "Pay money to get a game and a refund period and a bunch of features and maybe when Gabe dies we will do that other thing"
There is no alternative. GOG is run by the same people who released CyberPunk2077 as a bug ridden mess to please upper management, so they even have evidence of already straddling that line right now.
GOG is also amazing.
1.0 was 5/10 (quit after a few days) 1.5 was 7/10 (finished) Phantom Liberty was a 9/10 (finished)
It took 2 full years of additional development for 2077 to be in the amazing state it is in now.
It's a terrible incentive for the industry and why I still refuse to buy No Man's Sky.
It's essentially the concept of early access but lying about not being early access.
They had to be sued to get them to offer refunds
They had to be sued to get them to remove forced arbitration clause