My company’s owner/CEO can stay, gives us all sizeable profit share bonuses. During covid people didn’t get layed off, even though there was no work. Sure hours were reduced, but work was found around the shop to keep people busy as much as possible.
In other words, small business owners that care about employee and their clients.
I would rather focus on billionaire and millionaire than CEO since both are not automatically interchangeable… .
You can be a CEO In a small business without being a millionaire of the same category as the one of United HealthCare
Well I know for sure ain’t nobody mentioning the Nestle CEO, Laurent Freixe, on here 🤣
Sam Reich of Dropout TV
CEOs should just be elected by the employees
That’s a feature of Market Socialism, but we can’t call it that because sOcIalIsM sCaRy, so let’s go with Democracy in the Workplace.
Socialism is of course democratic. When people say “socialism is bad” what they mean is Socialism is good, and they’re thinking about Communism, which is actually also good but has never really been implemented properly.
Communism could not be implemented properly, without first moving through socialism, that is, worker control and collective ownership of their productive workplace, but all over the world. A radical social transformation, international in scope, in which we can begin to assess human need and begin to distribute based on it, democratic from top to bottom.
But the ruling class won’t just give over control it has to be taken, with collective power.
I mean, that’s literally the conclusion that Richard Wolff came to. Call it whatever, just as long as we do it.
Pirates had some of the purest forms of democracy. Their captains were democratically elected in many cases as well. Not sure why they came to mind when you said this… But if your going to rip people off, and democratically pick your leader, pirates formed your company right
Seems like the pirate environment is especially suited to this type of democracy. Pirate ships operate outside the protections afforded by law, so the only thing really preventing pirate captains from being ousted (or murdered) is the crew’s support.
I guess a CEO would need to maintain shareholder support, but shareholders are generally fairly disconnected from the company’s day to day operations. Most individuals own shares through mutual funds or ETFs, which means they don’t actually have share ownership themselves and can’t vote. All you have is the fund owing you a fiduciary duty to vote in your best interests, which generally translates to whatever makes the most money. So the CEO just needs to keep a few large institutions happy, and possibly some large wealthy individual shareholders that he knows from the rotary club (where the heads of aforementioned institutions are also members)
In other words, the way the financial system is set up systematically deprives the less wealthy from their right to have a say in the operation of the companies they nominally own a part of.
At the start of the Russian Revolution, the Soviets tried that. Even they quickly discovered that pure democracy didn’t work well when choosing “the boss.” They even went so far as to remove ranks from the military. Which failed even faster.
Turns out, “the boss” often can’t afford to be popular or buddies with everyone when making decisions.
Che Guevara wrote about in his book Critical Notes on Political Economy about how workers who are given full autonomy in their enterprises actually can become antagonistic towards society because they benefit solely from their own enterprise succeeding at the expense of all others, and thus they acquire similar motivations to the capitalist class, i.e. they want deregulations, dismantling of the public sector, more power to their individual enterprise, etc.
The solution is not to abandon workplace democracy but to balance it out also with public democracy. You have enterprises with a board that is both a mixture of direct appointments from the workers at that company with their direct input, as well as appointments by the public sector / central government. The public appointments are necessary to make sure the company is keeping inline with the will of everybody and not merely the people at that specific enterprise, because the actions of that enterprise can and does affect the rest of society.
Workplaces need to be democratic, but also not autonomous from the democratic will of the rest of society.
“on a long enough timeline, the primary purpose of every organization becomes its own continued existence”
Yeah… no.
Reality is sometimes the boss has to be bossy. Quadrupling salaries and cutting 4 days a week from the schedule sounds great for employees until the business fails.
What should be implemented is a maximum ratio of executive/worker pay (including contractors so they don’t just outsource cheap labor to cheat the system) based on 5-year averages.
Without the 5-year rule, and new CEO can come in, give everyone massive raises, and burn the company down for a quick buck.
The boss can still be bossy if elected. Your 5 year rule is silly and does not address the overlying problem, which is that the CEO works for the shareholders and they only care about making record quarterly profit gains at any cost.
The boss does sometimes have to be bossy. If the workers have a stake in the company that actually matters, then they also actually care about the outcome that the company faces.
You’re not going to vote to drive something into the ground if you think it will provide you with more value not dismantled and in your pocket.
Workers aren’t idiots any more than CEOs are. It’s why worker owned co-ops that elect their management do sometimes vote to reduce their own wages. They have a fair stake and want what’s best for the business because it’s best for them.
What if they work for a company where the vast majority of positions aren’t viewed as a “career” jobs?
Not many people want to flip burgers or stock shelves the rest of their lives. If 80% of the workplace doesn’t plan on sticking with the company anyway, why wouldn’t they elect the person who will triple their salary for a few months before they jump ship to another burger chain?
With that bump in payment, they can afford to spend a few months looking for a job after the one they have goes away because the business went under.
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You could in fact create a company that operates like that if you wanted. The problem is that you can’t force every company to organize according to your preferences.
You could if you worked together… And your preferences were the majority’s preferences
You can force a lot of things if you have the majority. Doesn’t mean you should.
If Congress writes the law then it can be so.
Except if it’s capitalism right, because this bullshit is happening now
Mike “My Pillow” Lindell… HEAR ME OUT… I don’t agree with his politics, but the dude is hilarious.
can’t decide yay or nay for Mozilla but
Valve and CloudFlare.
Is the CEO of costco still a decent guy?
Costco recently got a new CEO. The company had been pushing scummy tactics ever since.
That’s disappointing.
'Frade not. They are currently executing union busting measures against their workers.
Did they actually go through with it? I remember them attempting it, but then immediately backing down and issuing a very reasonable response letter basically saying they were clearly in the wrong and allowed the union to form. I could totally be unaware of any more recent developments though.
The hot dogs are still $1.50
And the roast chickens are still the cheapest in town.
nuff said
This CEO, Gabe Newell, and (if he was still alive) the founder of Little Caesars, who, if I recall correctly, secretly paid for Rosa Parks apartment until her death.
Gabe Newell owns fleets of yachts and private jets. The man is using your sweet gaming money to burn the planet.
Yeah but daddy gaben let’s me play my games 😩 so it’s okay
maybe he’s just buying up all the yachts and private jets so no one else can have them.
He was going to have them laser-scanned for a Half-Life 3 level, but nevermind.
Yeah we need a source.
Also, as far as CEO’s go, speaking from an outside perspective obviously, the man is wonderful. Valve makes solid business decisions in favor of long term growth instead of short term profits. They do this buy making sure that their platform is easy, safe, reliable, and not abusive for their consumers. They institute their own consumer protections into the platform that make them less money, just to make sure they remain a place we WANT to shop, when everyone else tries to make themselves the only place to shop, and then fucking over their consumers at every opportunity. Valve is a fucking case study on how companies should be ran, and a perfect display of how modern american capitalism is ruining everything, by being the antithesis of it.
Sources or STFU.
The founder of Little Caesars was a typical magnate developer who bought up much of downtown Detroit and let it rot until he received tax incentives to build, and kicked out many low income residents from apartments he let sit until they got city money. His family continues this tradition. The Rosa Parks thing is the only good thing I’ve ever heard of that man and his family do.
Add Steve Wozniak to the list of the ones to be protected. The Woz has done more to pull people up and we should all aspire to that level if we ever have the means.
Woz isn’t a CEO and was stabbed in the back so many times he makes the Ten of Swords look like a sign for future friendships
He’s been on multiple board of directors and founded several orgs. While not a CEO, he’s certainly in the same sphere and must be protected.
Woz is the true Tech Jesus
Woz is the true Tech Jesus
No that would be Stallman. In so many ways, but most importantly by establishing the concept of free software and pushing hard for progressive values. Also by being unpopular with the masses.
You mean GNU/Stallman
in terms of being betreayed? sure.
In terms of being the salvation and the light? Nah, that’s Linus
Linus is the drunken uncle of the tech backbone, let’s be real here. Woz is the supportive one after being in abusive relationship after abusive relationship.
After every instance of getting relatively screwed over (he still made bank, just not as much) he still founded and ran groups that focussed on pushing the envelope of tech or improving less advantaged youth into stem fields
Linus is the drunken uncle of the tech backbone, let’s be real here. Woz is the supportive one after being in abusive relationship after abusive relationship.
Woz is Bill Dautrive, Linus is Rusty Shackleford :P
Nah people need to stop jerking off Gabe and valve I general.
They started predatory lootboxes, ridiculously expensive cosmetics, early access, owning a licence instead of the actual game, had to be sued just to get refund policy and the vast vast majority of his wealth has come from just skimming a bit off from people who actually make games he distributes.
If you look at valve without the “omg steams sale XXXDDD”" mentality, then they are no better than ea or Activision.
Truth.
Valve been private company allows them to avoid some shortsighted decisions of public corps, but they’re no saints.
We need more stores, with an interstore protocol allowing you to move your licenses. EU get on that please
Do you understand how much work goes into distributing terabytes of content around the world?
Valve give you AAA games. For free. No material restrictions on game-play or competitive advantage. They pay for the server hosting, anti-cheat and matchmaking.
The provide a storefront that anyone can sell their games on. And they don’t contract you into exclusivity periods like others do. Do you think it’s coincidence that they have, by far, the largest games store in the world?
They have supported games, for free, for over 10 years. You could have 10 years of world-class online gaming (CS:GO/2 or DOTA2) and have not spent a single penny, with no hit to your ability to play and win.
Sure, they’re not perfect, they are at their core a profit-driven company and they can do things that are not in the consumers best interest.
But to compare them to shitbags like EA and Activision/Blizzard is an incredible thing to do. And removes any weight from your argument.
I knew comments like this would turn up. But it still saddens me that even Lemmy users, who ar in general much more cognizant of these things and less likely to get caught up in the circlejerk, can’t acknowledge that Gabe Newell isn’t your best freind, he is in fact just another money hungry corporate CEO.
You say comparing valve to say, blizzard is incredible, but the points you use to defend valve can also be made of them.
Is Overwatch 2 not free? With no pay 2 win features? Does Blizzard not pay for the server hosting anti cheat and matchmaking? Do they not also support there game for years? ( also I find that funny given the fact the TF2 community is going ballistic right now over the fact valve isn’t doing shit to support it against cheaters and bots)
Yes they provide a store front anyone can sell on. Including shitty asset flips, early access pump and dumps, predatory spyware etc. And are very reluctant to do litersly anything about it when those scams are called to attention.
And again, that storefront isn’t some altruistic endeavour Gabe took on out the kindness of his heart. No he’s made BILLIONS by exploiting the worl of others, just like every other billionaire. And if providing a basic service makes up for your predatory bullshit, well we might as well let literally every other CEO off the hook then right?
It’s not a bad in to admit you got sucked in my propaganda or marketing or just general Internet circlejerks, what is a bad thing is to vehemently refuse any introspection on your current beliefs and defend them to the death simply because they are what you currently believe. I really hope I can reach out to people on Lemmy and that you guys can actually take a step and try to look at things objectively instead of doubling down.
I knew comments like this would turn up. But it still saddens me that even Lemmy users, who ar in general much more cognizant of these things and less likely to get caught up in the circlejerk, can’t acknowledge that Gabe Newell isn’t your best freind, he is in fact just another money hungry corporate CEO.
I encourage you to point out where I did that. I think, you’ll find, I agree with you, for the most part.
You say comparing valve to say, blizzard is incredible, but the points you use to defend valve can also be made of them.
Is Overwatch 2 not free? With no pay 2 win features? Does Blizzard not pay for the server hosting anti cheat and matchmaking? Do they not also support there game for years? ( also I find that funny given the fact the TF2 community is going ballistic right now over the fact valve isn’t doing shit to support it against cheaters and bots)
Yes, one of the two companies you listed have one free-to-play game. If you want to focus on that and ignore the decades of anti-consumer, money-grubbing behavior, I don’t think I can help you.
Yes they provide a store front anyone can sell on. Including shitty asset flips, early access pump and dumps, predatory spyware etc. And are very reluctant to do litersly anything about it when those scams are called to attention.
Are you referring to Steam: Greenlight? Because, you know, they shut that down 8 years ago. Or, maybe you’re referring to the mod marketplace they tried to start, and then shut down because of the backlash. That was 9 years ago.
And again, that storefront isn’t some altruistic endeavour Gabe took on out the kindness of his heart. No he’s made BILLIONS by exploiting the worl of others, just like every other billionaire. And if providing a basic service makes up for your predatory bullshit, well we might as well let literally every other CEO off the hook then right?
Actually, Steam originated as an effort to block Microsoft’s plans to turn PC gaming into a walled garden, like the consoles are. Sure, Valve make money off it, but there IS a consumer-friendly reason for it to exist.
It’s not a bad in to admit you got sucked in my propaganda or marketing or just general Internet circlejerks, what is a bad thing is to vehemently refuse any introspection on your current beliefs and defend them to the death simply because they are what you currently believe. I really hope I can reach out to people on Lemmy and that you guys can actually take a step and try to look at things objectively instead of doubling down.
Try this yourself.
Your post has an arrogance to it that smacks of “I’m always right, agree with me or be wrong.”. I’m not saying it’s intentional, but it comes across pretty strongly.
Also, don’t pigeon-hole people who disagree you into GABEN4LYEF RIDE OR DIE fanatics, and we might just have a constructive conversation.one of the two companies you listed have one free-to-play game. If you want to focus on that and ignore the decades of anti-consumer, money-grubbing behavior, I don’t think I can help you.
That’s my point to you exactly. You’re ignoring all of valves anti-consumer bullshit because they made a video game you like.
Are you referring to Steam: Greenlight?
No, I’m just referring to the steam store itself, that just allows all that shit to this day.
Sure, Valve make money off it, but there IS a consumer-friendly reason for it to exist.
So what’s the “consumer friendly” reason they don’t let you actually own your games?
Try this yourself.
I did. I used to be on the “omg Gaben so cool! Steam sale take my money you XD” circlejerk too. Then one day I heard about his fleet of luxury mega-yatchs and that made me look at things properly, that he was again just another billionaire leaching off the work of others.
Also, don’t pigeon-hole people who disagree you into GABEN4LYEF RIDE OR DIE fanatics, and we might just have a constructive conversation.
I’m not. That’s what you are doing to yourself by just completely disregarding decades of anti-consumer bullshit because they made a couple games you like.
You’re just outright dismissing undeniable shitty behaviour from Valve for entirely superficial reasons, then when I show you you’re justifications can be used with other gaming companies that get hate, you dismiss that without reason too.
You will probably consider this over dramatic but this interaction has 100% genuinely killed my last remaining scrap of hope for humanity. If people on Lemmy who are generally both left wing and intelligent, can’t even acknowledge that billionaires that push anti-consumer bullshit are bad (even when they make a bideo game you like) then what hope is there of the general public understanding that? We’re truly never going to change anything and we’re just going to let the billionaires destroy us.
Thank you, goodnight.
Until you acknowledge that my position has nuance and is not diametrically opposed to yours, there is no reason to engage in debate.
You’ve repeatedly misrepresented my stance to make it an easy target for dismissal.
I asked you to point out where I made the claims you attributed to me, you did not.
I think you also need to give up the idea that everyone on a given platform will be as ‘enlightened’ as you are.
Everyone has their own thoughts and opinions. There is infinite room for microscopic differences. Straw-manning and pigeon-holing does nothing but annoy people and make you look boorish. Nobody wants to engage with that.
I will acknowledge that if and when you make a position with actual nuance. “You can’t compare Valce to Activision because valve makes free games” isn’t nuanced and is just ignorant.
I asked you to point out where I made the claims you attributed to me, you did not.
??? No you didn’t? I even just re read this whole thread. You literally never asked that???
I think you also need to give up the idea that everyone on a given platform will be as ‘enlightened’ as you are.
Clearly.
Everyone has their own thoughts and opinions.
Yep, some people have class consciousness and actually want to talk about the failures of capitalism and the atrocity of people having billions of dollars while others starve and live on the streets. And others want to defend those billionaires because they run a company that made a video game they liked 20 years ago.
Virtual Casino. More addictive than IRL ones. Insidiously pushed on kids. Predatory. As Fuck.
He also normalized hosting kid’s content and adult/gambling content on the same platform. Anyone who tried to open up a game store that also sold adult material would get crucified nowadays.
The reason Steam is praised so much is because unlike EA and Activision, regardless of what they try to push that they shouldn’t, they do put in the effort of going back and looking at issues from gamer’s eyes. Those cosmetics? They came about at a time when P2W was much more of a concern, and paying for something merely visual was considered much more acceptable. Early access? It came about from trying to open up development to more indies instead of just the big devs and publishers. Licensing instead of owning? The alternative were much more costly physical copies that also degraded with time and which you had to maintain a backup of yourself. If your local game store didn’t have it, you were screwed, and there could be no discounts. Porn on the platform? Don’t care, not a child and I’m responsible.
Even then, I still damn Valve on both normalizing licenses on a subscription service that were it not for its market dominance could easily be teetering right now along with most people’s game library’s, and for not bothering to make an adult/gambling only version of a game store. GOG needs a competitor (remember Devotion and now Nine Sols), and it has none. It is possible to make money and be a digital distribution service without being a subscription service. There should be far more distance between adult and predatory content and normal gaming content, not all parents are responsible and it more easily creates communities predators can target from overlapping interests.
Fine, kick the kids off. It’s better that way. Heaven forbid there be a place with both kinds of content. Imagine what would happen if bookstores or streaming services or years ago video rental places would do if they had all kinds of content. Oh and imagine that Steam had a filter to hide all that adult content wouldn’t that just be absolutely crazy?
Not everything has to be safe for kids. Kick them the fuck out if it’s an issue. Don’t dumb down the adults experience.
But what about the people who’ve got the maturity and responsibility of one, such as yourself?
Oh we will survive. Somehow! Thank you for your concern young knave but do not waste your fretting on us! Chin up!
Your analogy falls flat the moment your realize that G rated movies are served right beside R or unrated movies.
And steam has a filter to hide all adult content, and it also askes for your birthday all the damn time regardless of your account settings.
The first half of my comment was dripping sarcasm. I think the puritanical pearl clutching about steam having both types of content is stupid as fuck.
Making the claim that adult content = predators preying on children has a couple issues:
- Predators are incredibly rare, and it has been repeatedly shown that these claims of predators-behind-every-account are blown out of proportion for political scare reasons (see Satanic Panic, all of human history for more examples).
- Even if the above weren’t true, why on earth would those people be spending their time on adult content instead of, say, roblox or minecraft? You know, games for children, that children play?
The debate over steam hosting adult content is some really regressive stuff. An alternative take, the one I hold, is “It’s really heartening to see a major content platform not giving in to the conservative moralists that view anime tiddies as somehow damaging to the fabric of society. Making sexuality a less shameful topic for discussion also, conveniently, reduces ‘shame’ as an effective lever for preying on children, and makes them more likely to come forward and tell people when they’re actually in danger”.
All it takes is another client, a lot of argument for not wanting to take one iota of minimal responsibility. Predators are not rare, they literally fuel television series regarding them. They don’t have to be many to be a threat, either, all it takes is a small number of very active ones. They do target children’s game, having adult content facilities introducing children to it as “lol lemme gift u / giv u dis CD key its so sik”. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/07/us/video-games-child-sex-abuse.html - What alternate reality do you live in?
The first sentence of that article lists Minecraft and Fortnite.
Neither of those games are available on Steam.
…
So, and stop me if this is too wild a conclusion, it maybe just might possibly be the case that having separate storefronts doesn’t actually have any impact on sexual predation of minors in videogames.(Edit: actually, none of the games listed in that article are available on steam. Did… did you even read it?)
You were the completely utter moron who said predators “are incredibly rare”, I was just disproving it. Now you are just moving the goalpost. Yeah, time to disconnect from pervs who are asking to handhold them through basic logic they don’t want to see when all they will do is try to troll on whatever minutiae they think they can focus on to move the goalpost again.
That’s not moving the goalpost, that’s keeping the goalpost on the original topic. “Is steam making online predation worse by not having two separate storefronts” - Answer: Clearly, no, since there are multiple storefronts and that has nothing to do with how children are exploited online.
But if you want to talk about the rarity of predators (I’m taking the numbers in the article here): 1500 reported cases / year of sextortion in the US and nation partners is pretty damn rare. Even assuming non-reporting rates are 500x the value given in that article, that’s still 750,000 victims among ~1,000,000,000 people, or a 0.00075% victim rate. You’re only twice as likely to have been victimized per year as you are to have been struck by lightning. I don’t… like, I don’t know what else to call that but rare.
(The above numbers are just about sextortion, a very broad category of crime and that which is the crime in question here. Broadly, “pressuring kids online to send naked photos of themselves”. This number doesn’t include physical abuse crimes, I did confirm that in their sources.)
aww
Been decades since I saw one of those cost a dollar
CEO of Ben &Jerry’s. They are not just posting the black square on their insta and then moving on, like half their posts are about fighting inequity, encouraging people to vote for actual human rights, openly pro abortion, pro immigrant rights, pro black rights, pro women’s right, about fighting climate change etc. they are walking the walk, conservative dollars be damned
Also AFAIK they are one of the few companies that have been removed from the BDS list after improving behavior and leaving illegal Palestinian settlements. Recently they sued their parent company for silencing their statements on Palestinian rights.
I don’t love ever setting any people or corporations on a pedestal. Nevertheless this is reassuring behavior to see amidst all the Starbucks, AirBnB and Re/Maxes of the world.
It’s a shame they don’t fully move to vegan ice cream
Edit: When the very base ingredient of their ice cream is based on exploitation and torture, how much are their initiatives really worth? It’s virtue signalling at its best
Plus I’m yet so see someone giving a valid reason as to why they shouldn’t. Just tell me you don’t care and I’ll move along
Why should they? I have no problem with people being vegan and I have no problem with vegan food being provided as an option but I don’t think vegans have the right to dictate to everyone else how they live their lives.
A. Ben & Jerry’s moving to exclusively vegan ice cream is in no way forcing people to live their lives a certain way. Recipes are not protected by copyright law so anyone can make and sell ice cream however they want.
B. The dairy industry wreaks havoc on the planet. It would benefit everyone if the dairy industry disappeared or at least shrank
It would be forcing people who prefer Ben & Jerry’s to either have vegan ice cream (which may not be their preference) or switch to another brand (which also may not be their preference). What you’re saying is that you want people to have fewer options.
Would it be accurate to rephrase your argument like this?
“Ben & Jerry’s changing all their recipes to use only vegan ingredients would be anti-freedom”
If you want to make an argument against that, you can do that in your head. You seem to be good at making up things you want other people to say, so you don’t need me for your imaginary argument.
You could just say “no.” I was curious how far your logic would go because you said, and I quote, “it would be forcing people who prefer Ben & Jerry’s to either have vegan ice cream or switch to another brand”
Like, dude, come on. You have to hear how ridiculous that sounds. Nobody is forcing anybody to eat ice cream. And also, though this is just coming from my experience, I’ve never met anyone who exclusively likes Ben & Jerry’s. Bad ice cream is almost always better than no ice cream so I would challenge you to find someone who would be upset about needing to eat ice cream that was created by any brand other than Ben & Jerry’s.
Humans are literally forcing animals to live and die by their life styles. The only ones forcing anybody here are humans.
There is no sound reason as to why B&J doesn’t fully move away from non-vegan ice cream. They’ve proven that they can produce vegan flavours, that they cost them the same (probably less even), that they taste well enough for them to remain among the flavours they offer. It’s just stigma and prejudice that leads to people shutting off completely when veganism is even mentioned.
Realistically, like be frank with yourself for a second and don’t resort to a kneejerk reaction: would you mind if your ice cream was vegan? It’s a luxury item, it’s a sweet, so it’s not essential. Most sweets you eat are vegan already. What’s one more? Plus, you end up helping a bunch of animals.
Okay but that’s something you care about.
What we’re talking about is finding the lowest common denominator of what can be considered acceptable by the general populace, It is not about becoming the best version of ourselves.
Let’s not muddy the waters by making this about something other than basic human decency.
That would be an absolute disaster.
Why?
vegan icecrean is apparently terrible… said no one ever
There aremore very bad milk-substitute ice creams than bad regular ice creams. It may be the age of the market, though.
Adding my vote of confidence to them
Video game industry will collapse in on itself when Gabe Newell dies, and enshittification creeps into Steam.
I shall seize one of his yachts (probably metaphorically) and sail under the Jolly Roger when enshittification comes for Steam. Until then, it’s a pretty solid solution for buying PC games.
Steam Deck is also amazing, in that it’s as simple as a Switch to get playing but open enough through desktop mode to do so much more. As your customer, thanks for not treating me like a paste eating delinquent.
What concerns me about the future of sailing is the sea monster known as denuvo, as there haven’t been a way to reliably hunt it down
there are three people on this ocean who can reliably hunt that beast.
- one is a transphobe
- the other is a trans
- and the other only cracks football games.
Not really looking good for the scene if only three people can crack it.
Already moved on from Steam. Had 750 games there. Deleted the client and started GOG collection. No Galaxy client for me. No more cancer social media, achievements, friends… just Offline installers and the satisfaction that I actually own these games now.
Something I’ve been worried about for some time. I mean, I hope his death isn’t soon, but we all know whoever steps in is most likely to royally fuck it up.
He just needs to make it an employee owned company. I believe it would make it a stable institution.
I actually have hope for the company after he is gone. All they have to do is keep steam going and they win. They just print money. There is no reason to go evil and sell the company and go public. They just win.
provided the can safeguard themselves from parasites that might try creeping in and try to change things for worse
This could be said for most companies I think. But the principle of enshitification applies regardless
Steam is already enshitified. Every other marketplace just sucks that much.
No it isn’t. I have yet to pay a single cent or subscription in more than a decade.
Are you trying to imply subscription fees are necessary for something to be called enshitified?
Well you haven’t given any practical examples of how you think Steam is enshittified, so you’ve left people to draw their own conclusions and definitions.
To me it just sounds like someone who’s trying to justify pirating indie games.
Any examples? AFAIK they improved a lot, especially in Linux space which I am very grateful for. I wouldn’t be using Linux if it wasn’t for steam. Although there are still a lot of things to complain about but if it wasn’t better before then it isn’t enshiftification by definition.
I think you’d be hard pressed to find a marketplace that isn’t enshitified in some way. Most are going to shove ads in your face which is shitty, but most people aren’t going to recognize it as a bad thing because they’re there to shop.
Right so no actual examples then?
And you can’t say advertising because of course there’s going to be adverts up for games sold on the platform. I think most people would argue that if you go into a store, and then see a sign in that store, for something that is sold in the store, that’s not advertising, that’s just signage.
The goal of advertising is to try to convince you that you want a product or a service. But if you are already in the store you’ve already made the decision that you want that product or service, so by definition you can’t be advertised to at that point.
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How is anybody supposed to be disagreeing with you you haven’t said anything yet.
Nows a good time to articulate a defense. Because as far as their impact on gaming as a distributor, theyve enabled more than any other company by far
You view this as me saying it’s a bad platform. I don’t think it is. I love it and use it often. GoG is probably the only one that’s not enshitified.
You’ve still yet to actually say how steam is enshittified despite several comments asking. You reply but dodge the real question.
Dodge the question
Yeah, I’m not interested in getting interrogated over my opinions today. Especially by someone literally named “AngryMob”.
Edit: after they said “its entertaining how sensitive you got about this.” I now feel justified in my hesitancy.
Oh, I see. You’re just being a contrarian. 🙄
No, I just don’t see any point in adding nuance to my opinion when everyone is already shitting on me for it. Do you know how shitty it feels opening my inbox, excited to see folks to chat with, and it’s just people getting angry about stuff I said? Why would I want to add context? Just so everyone can shit on me more? No, I’m good.
Then don’t announce your random opinion into the void then?
If you’re going to stand on the street corner and shout about how the world is coming to an end, don’t be upset when people ask you to provide some evidence.
I’m not trying to suggest people shouldn’t be allowed to respond negatively to an opinion. But I’m also allowed to not want to engage. Any “evidence” I provide is just going to get shot down. Everyone’s mind is already made up on the topic. Steam can do no wrong, apparently. Despite the fact that I even said it’s the best and that I like it, everyone just wants to attack for me for having the gall to suggest it’s less than perfect.
It’s not like I hate it. The criticisms are minor. I just don’t want to get online and feel like I’m being interrogated. So no, I’m not going to “provide evidence.” There are hills I’m willing to actually willing to argue about, but this isn’t one. Life’s too fucking short to explain my minor criticisms with the best digital PC game store when we all know everyone is just going to respond with things Valve does that are good and act like that magically erases the bad. Everyone’s already been doing in this thread.
I experienced the same shit back with BG3 when the hype train was at critical levels. I’d talk about my frustrations that everyone said it was a “polished” game by talking about the bugs/UX difficulties I was experiencing. I’d get mocked to no end. Even then I’d always say the game is great and I’m loving it along every criticism. But people don’t care. It’s just tribalism. They see someone criticizing a thing they like and can’t handle it.
So no, I’m not going to explain why I view Steam as an enshitified platform. Because it’s pointless and I know everyone is already going to disagree and pile on even further. And it’s a minor criticism.
I swear, it’s like people are thinking I’m saying EGS is the bastion of Linux gaming or something because I said I have minor issues with Steam. It’s just exhausting.
GoG is more enshittified than Steam (which really isn’t enshittified). They spam emails now with random deals, like several emails a day with “(code for deal here) expires in 24 HOURS” and it’s always some random shitty game. Steam just send emails for when a wishlisted game goes on sale or releases, exactly what I want. But GoG has gone full unwanted spam with theirs, random games I’ve never seen before and no info about what game in the subject line so you have to open the mail to see. It’s so shitty.
I was referring more to the DRM, but yeah, that’s a fair point. I don’t use GoG much so it’s possible that’s why I haven’t seen this.
I can see how you can say that about the Steam’s UI in some spots, but not Steam as a whole. They have a great business model, as far as video games are concerned.
They have some of the highest paid employees, and they keep prices low.
Just because Steam is objectively the best doesn’t mean we shouldn’t criticize them when it matters.
Sure. But what exactly are you criticizing? All you’ve really said is essentially “Steam sucks too” with no reasoning.
I agree, but I don’t think that backs the claim that it’s already enshittified.
Because he maintains a near monopoly.
He doesn’t tho. He just offers such a good service to people that they don’t want to use anything else. That’s not a monopoly.
and he maintains a near monopoly because Steam is just a great platform for gamers, as Gabe has said:
Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.
and he’s right! i almost never pirate video games because of their price, i can wait for a sale, there’s a billion other games i can play in the meantime
when shit like Epic takes years to implement a shopping basket, and still have yet to recolour their payment page so it stops flashbanging gamers across the world, Steam doesn’t even need to try very hard to be the best. The biggest changes on Steam in the recent years are what - updating the UI aged ago? adding a points system so people can get silly profile decorations as an additional reward for buying a video game? Steam has created a platform so good all they need to do is sit back relax, and think of what other sprinkles colour to add to the
cakepie?Steam has competitors, but the difference is Steam is for gamers, and most of their competitors is for money
god help us all if that ever were to change, the second Steam enshittifies the internet will implode
Steam recently the added the ability to easily record gameplay footage. They are also updating the family sharing system (that feature alone would probably never come to other platforms). They also continue to improve gaming on Linux. I don’t remember how long it has been, but they massively updated the library with a lot of really useful features such as being able to select a friend and it’ll show what games you have in common so picking a game to play with a friend is a lot easier.
Further back we see the remote play together feature added to Steam; I was hesitant to use it for a long time but as long as you and the host have a decent internet connection it works pretty flawlessly.
Their custom control settings and community sharing of the different controller schemes is incredibly helpful with some games.
Their review system is pretty good and always helpful to me when exploring for new games I haven’t previously heard of. They have also seem to try to keep the reviews more legit and less spammy/meme-y and more relevant to the actual game itself.
They also implement rules to keep game pages on the store less spammy, they had a big overhaul on the rules around thumbnails for games to keep text off of them because developers started overloading them with advertisements for other games.
They have also recently announced allowing for refunds on season passes when the developers take too long or never deliver on their promises they sold you on. This of course should have always been the case, but at let they’re coming around. I also don’t know if any of the other platforms make it as easy to get a refund as Steam does, but that’s been around for a while now.
I believe there has also been a lot of work developing server side cheat detection so maybe one day we won’t have to rely on client side anti-cheats so much. I also believe they recently made a change to their rules where if a game has a kernel/root level anti cheat that they have to flag that on the store page for the game.
Steam (Valve) actually seem to care about games and the industry in general and want to see the environment around gaming improve.
From my current view point Steam is an actual platform everyone else are just store fronts that provide no additional value to the consumer. So yeah, pricing is rarely the issue when it comes to piracy and Steam really shows how true that statement can be.
Also, most people don’t realize that Steam doesn’t force games to use DRM, that’s purely up to the developers.
Edit: fixed some typos.
What monopoly ?
Steam has something like 75% of the PC market share based on a figure from the anti trust lawsuit.
Yeah but they aren’t doing anything to enforce that. They have market share because their product is good and everyone else’s equivalent product sucks nuts. That’s not a monopoly, that’s the free market at work.
No such thing as free-market buddy
Not a monopoly, Epic should be called out for that
Epic doesn’t have a monopoly either.
I think the term you’re looking for is “anti-competitive practices.”
Shane Te Pou maybe ? (from mega.nz)
Maybe all CEOs get a yearly review. If they are good, they continue working. If something doesn’t add up, they get to choose to quit or they get executed right on the spot by placing their head between two large metal plates. The top plate is then dropped from 3 stories high.
This sounds like the start of how liberal govt. was invented.
We’ll end up with elected reps, laws, courts etc.
Which will soon be corrupted by the private sector
We’ll need to invent some kind of open source decentralized communications platform to discuss the problem.
to be fair, corruption will always exist, but without the strongest forces of corruption present (yes the rich surprisingly) it will be a lot more manageable
Why wait a year? Make it bi annual
I don’t particularly mind if they’re bi or not lol.
Couple of British examples of what should be the standard for modern business:
Julian Richer, founder of Richer Sounds (hifi store in the UK), seems like one of the better capitalists around. He signed over majority control of the company to an employee trust when he turned 60, donates 15% of their profit to charity, runs a nonprofit dedicated to exposing corporate tax avoidance, campaigns against zero hours contracts, and devotes company resources to promoting unsigned bands: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Richer
James Timpson recently stepped down as CEO of Timpson, another UK retailer that specialises in things like key cutting, shoe repairs, passport photos etc. He made it company policy to hire people who had been to prison and help them get back on their feet, and his campaign for prison reform saw him step down from the company to become Minister for Prisons in the current government. The company has a “Director of Happiness” who is paid to keep the front line staff happy, resulting in policies like getting the day off work on your kid’s first day of school, compassionate leave for the death of a pet, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timpson_(retailer)
Timpsons apparently has really interesting business models.
A friend of mine has worked on a few of their conferences, and apparently it’s both fascinating and they come across as a genuinely wholesome business.It’s a franchise, but the franchisee (ie the shop) has complete control over what they sell and what services they provide (I dunno if there are any guard rails). So if they want to offer dry cleaning, they can. If they want to offer phone repairs, they can. If they want to only partially offer something, then they can rely on the Timpsons service network to provide the actual service (so dry cleaning without owning dry cleaning equipment).
https://www.timpson.co.uk/about-timpson
The management teams delegate authority but retain responsibility and we have only 2 rules:
- Look the part
- Put the money in the till
And apparently they look after their staff really well. Actually good/useful perks & benefits. In addition to the compassionate leave you’ve mentioned, I’m sure my friend said something about timpsons owning some property that they allow their staff to book for free (like free accomodation for holidays). Or maybe they do block bookings of stuff, or something. I wasn’t hugely paying attention tbh.
Plus their stores smell even better than petrol.
