The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

No company is your friend. But Valve does a great job at being consumer friendly. Steam is a great low-pressure sales environment. It provides features that make it more enjoyable for users to play, hang out, communicate, share content, mods. It doesn't harangue you or change your settings, or the UI, or your games (mostly) without reason and warning. Things work like you expect them to in other apps, back buttons work. You can pop open multiple windows. It gets out of your way. You can even set your kids accounts to not have access to the store, something that literally no other company does. I'd love to disable the Minecraft Marketplace for my kids because sometimes they spend more time looking at things there than playing.

GabeN called piracy a service problem. And he's right. I've received games free on other platforms like Epic or EA and I've bought them from Steam just so I don't have to use the terrible apps. If I was younger or couldn't afford it, maybe I'd be sailing the seas. I bought Alan Wake 2 on Epic since it's a timed exclusive. I plan on buying it again once it releases on Steam because Epic is just so terrible. All the effort went into the store and almost none into the actual act of playing the game which is where I'm spending the majority of my time while I'm in the app!

Most companies don't care about customer satisfaction or post sales support. They have your money, why would they. Oh, yeah, repeat customers.

EDIT: Just to add a gripe about Amazon. Their games app is so bad that if you use the back button on your mouse while a screenshot is open the page changes but the image stays until you close it. If you click on a game to view the details in a long list of games and then go back it loses your sort order and position in the games listing. It's frustrating to use even just to find something to play. Steam has its own rough edges, but they're not in the golden path of discover -> buy -> install -> play -> share

While I know that Steam has DRM, it's never been as onerous as other types of DRM.

I also know that Steam DRM isn't that hard to bypass. Generally just some patched DLLs. But I've never had a real need to bypass it. Steam lets you play offline with no connection. My games are, to a first approximation, mine and Valve doesn't need to be informed every minute I'm playing if I so choose.

Gabe's premise is right on. We pirate from Netflix and Epic because it's orders of magnitude easier than playing by the rules. I buy from Steam because it's easier than piracy.

As a rule, I don't pirate steam games. If it's something I'm interested in, it's probably worth my money. I do pirate from EA and others because the Sims 4 is not worth $500 in any universe. I pirate shows and movies because it's too much time and money to even figure out who has what I want this week.

You beat pirates by making your service more attractive than piracy. Steam is a better experience than free, and a better experience than all the other paid options. This is how you win.