Nothing can go wrong

Well, firstly, that Steam, as a platform, is DRM. Not all DRM is always-on enforcement.

Yes and no. When Valve first released Steam, there basically wasn’t anything like it. It was only for Valve games, it was required, and was basically always on DRM.

However, that also ended up saving PC gaming as a market and as a whole, because piracy was actually so rampant that publishers were looking at other options (consoles). So, when Steam as a platform showed being extremely successful at enforcing copyright protection but by offering the service of syncing your saves and letting you download the games you owned QUICKLY and repeatedly, basically eliminating the need for physical media, other developers eventually wanted in, and Valve eventually let some indie games on, which was a MASSIVE boon to their sales, too.

Then, other publishers wanted in, then they wanted their own digital distribution platforms, but then those platforms sucked and nobody wanted to use them, and those publishers whined a whole bunch (nobody seems to be able to figure out that you can’t do predatory shit and that you have to offer BOTH a desirable game AND a desirable platform, and those that have, realize it’s a lot of work and just go with Steam).

So, it’s not so much that Steam/Valve is the problem, it’s that they’re such a good solution, and that is hard/expensive to compete with. It’s not exactly simple, but it’s not exactly complicated.

Go pirate it and live your best life.

I do want to clarify, though, that always-on drm is ass. Just, for now, in exactly how they’re implemented, with all of the built up good karma, it’s acceptable.

The real questions we should be asking are “why does it not suck with steam, but does everywhere else?” and “what can we realistically ask of steam to improve the experience?” and “is there a better alternative?” And “Why is it like this to begin with?”

How do we improve this without just whining? Because all things considered, Valve would probably work with reasonable requests, if you had a good enough idea.