that moment when the One Good Billionaire casually orders a boat that costs several times more money than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes i get that there's worse out there but i'm tired of people acting like newell is a saint... he's just another billionaire.

Then why praise one for having a pet project just because it *might* help the environment? If it's not a good thing that they exist, why does there *need* to be a caveat of "but he's doing good things with his money."

Valve literally invented case gambling…

Funny, I was just reading about this sort of thing in "How to blow up a pipeline". It's the sort of argument that seems obvious in retrospect. When someone in the global south uses a coal stove to cook their food, they're doing it by necessity. When a billionaire sails out on a mega yacht, it's pure excess. Yeah, banning them won't make the difference between 1.5C and 2.0C of global warming, but it's low hanging fruit. We can also ban private jets, and the only significant impact to the economy would be that some billionaires have to travel around in first class like some kind of lowly multimillionaire or upgraded plebian. It does not matter if you think Valve makes good products or not.

There are no good billionaires, kids.

Like what?

Funny, I was just reading about this sort of thing in "How to blow up a pipeline". It's the sort of argument that seems obvious in retrospect. When someone in the global south uses a coal stove to cook their food, they're doing it by necessity. When a billionaire sails out on a mega yacht, it's pure excess. Yeah, banning them won't make the difference between 1.5C and 2.0C of global warming, but it's low hanging fruit. We can also ban private jets, and the only significant impact to the economy would be that some billionaires have to travel around in first class like some kind of lowly multimillionaire or upgraded plebian. It does not matter if you think Valve makes good products or not.

I still don't get why people go to bat for valve, despite all the anti consumer shit they regularly do.

He charged less than others and pays better than others. Valve also can't take much of a lower cut on game sales because their current cut is the market average and valve would get in legal trouble for monopoly practices and unfair competition because they're already so much more popular than the few competitors they have. What Gabe could do is give money away and be like alteuistic.

There are a lot of things governments are not doing that people with money do that benefit everyone and that's a good thing imo. Governments want to be liked and be re-elected by the mass and that means doing the things a lot of people care about wich is a good thing too. A lot of good is also being done in the world not by billionaires or governments but by groups of people with goals that asks for funding from average people and rich people to reach their goals. I will always applaud people for doing good things. That doesn't mean i can't be very critical when they are doing bad things. As far as i know the boats gabe newell is buying are for research and not to chill and have parties.

I still don't get why people go to bat for valve, despite all the anti consumer shit they regularly do.

Refreshing to hear this take. Valve and Gabe get glazed so hard when at the end of the day it's about the bottom dollar for them too. Honestly I think people love them so much because everyone else has been horrible by comparison.

He charged less than others and pays better than others. Valve also can't take much of a lower cut on game sales because their current cut is the market average and valve would get in legal trouble for monopoly practices and unfair competition because they're already so much more popular than the few competitors they have. What Gabe could do is give money away and be like alteuistic.

Lol yep they're an extremely wealthy company with that 30%. But it seems like almost every other storefront operates under those margins for digital sales (not just in gaming). I do value the cloud saves, I think those would actually add up a bit for their storage requirements as well as hosting all of the game files in presumably many locations globally. 15%, they'd still be a multibillion dollar company

I think the underpaying would be not having nearly as many employees as similar sized companies. They could have several divisions producing games while also developing their hardware and software. He has been happy to make changes at a slower pace while their store keeps taking large cuts of each sale.

No, I'm explicitly rejecting your point.