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Steam Machine

(store.steampowered.com)
1173 points davikr | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.301s | source
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thot_experiment ◴[] No.45903980[source]
> Who are we to tell you how to use your computer?

i'm having a hard time describing the feelings this makes me feel. like i've been stressed, bedraggled and worn down, and suddenly there's a moment where i can just rest

it's nice to be excited about something for once instead of the baseline expectation of a horrible adversarial experience, which is the case for most tech in 2025

it is somewhat depressing that it's this novel to expect a piece of hardware to actually exist to make my life nicer vs the default of being an abomination that tries constantly to extract money and information from me like a fucking vampire

(and i guess, not having used this yet, this also speaks to valve being one of the last companies that i have any trust in to be capable of making a business decision that makes them less money in the short run in order to deliver a better product)

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1. ranger207 ◴[] No.45905491[source]
A couple weeks ago Amazon said something about "we were trying to compete with Steam and even with all our resources nobody noticed" and that made me realize something: ideally, companies with similar products and services compete on features and cost, but nowadays the big tech providers compete more on lock in than anything else. But in the market of video game retail stores the competition _is_ on features and price, because Steam competes on those terms (ref gaben's famous quote "piracy is a service problem"; they're even competing and succeeding against free products)