I have to counter this. Yes, the 5 books are amazing, top notch low fantasy. 4 and 5 start to lose the plot a bit, but still good. But at this point it is unlikely that we will get an ending, and the 5th book ends with massive cliffhangersand unresolved plots. Hard for me to recommend it to someone until/unless it gets finished.

They didn’t memtion selling hardware as a way of selling digital assets. They included selling hardware as a way to convert the digital currency in steam wallet to real cash. The process of “selling skin in marketplace -> use those funds to buy a steam deck -> selling the deck for cash” is straightforward, and all allowed by valve.

Other platforms have people circumventing the rules and restrictions in order to sell digital assets for cash. In steam, they are included and supported by valve (and valve profits immensely from it, by selling the keys and getting a cut of most sales)

But the argument as to why valve is enabling gambling and other companies that also have lootboxes arent relies on that the skins in valve’s games have monetary value that is both directly influenced by valve (by making some skins rare), that players open loot boxes in hopes of getting the rare skins (because the common skins can be bought in steam’s marketplace for cents) and that the skins can be exchanged for real money (either by buying hardware with steam wallet cash and selling it, or in the third party marketplaces that valve allows, protect and promotes (yes, valve has closed accounts of some third party marketplaces, but only those with gambling. The ones that just allow buying and selling for cash are explicitly protected by valve, as shown in the filing).

I do agree that the children argument is weird. Gambling in illegal in ny for all, not just children

the main argument seems to be not that steam has games with loot boxes in them, but that steam allows people to exchange the assets for steam wallet cash, which allows people to buy real products (games AND hardware), so it is equivalent to money. And steam is obviously enabling that system. as far as i know, xbox, nintendo and playstation don’t have that in their systems

(also, NY argues that valve knew about and did not enough to stop third-party marketplaces that work with real money, based on internal communications, which might not be the same (or just be harder to prove) for the other companies)

so you don’t only dislike common mushrooms (fair, you eat what you want) but now the whole Fungi kingdom is garbage?

that is exactly what it does

the fewer repeats is for when you listen to the same playlist multiple times, not for the sequence itself

and that is what spotify actually does: https://engineering.atspotify.com/2025/11/shuffle-making-random-feel-more-human

https://github.com/ajayyy/SponsorBlock

Differently types of risks. Giving a 3rd party access to your full cloud storage has massive privacy concerns that he is right to want to avoid.

I fully expect that they will release ai-doctored body cam footage

I am definitely not on epic side here, but the reason they had to pay for exclusivity for games is because valve doesn’t allow any games on steam to be sold cheaper elsewhere. Which developers follow because steam brings in a lot of revenue.

Without that, epic could try to compete with steam (and its extra features) by offering lower prices, and letting the consumer make the choice of features vs price.

But valve policies effectively make it impossible for any new marketplace to compete.

I don’t know if valve are or aren’t abusing their monopolistic position. I am not a lawyer and i don’t have a horse in the race.

I was just answering to someone who said “if you don’t like valve policies, dont publish your games there”, which would be true for a normal business, but specifically not true of a monopoly, which steam is, unquestionably

Epic can do things much more freely, because they dont hold a monopoly on pc games

There are laws that say that abusing a monopoly is illegal. Steam is objectively a monopoly in pc games. Sure, you don’t have to use it, but it is basically impossible for indie developers to make a living without it.

Now, the question is if valve’s actions are actually abusing the monopoly, or normal business practices.

I think your timing is wrong. AI exploded after the staying at home was over.

ChatGPT was released on Nov 30, 2022, and that is the point when AI came into mainstream (even if gpt 3 or midjourney had been available already). By that point, stay at home restrictions had been gone by about a year, if not a bit more. For reference, the fifa world cup, with full attendance, started 10 days before

NYC has the largest jewish commiunity outside israel, many of which anti-zionists, and it shows how people of different faiths can co-live peacefully, so you can see why isreal wants to influence our politics

I understand what it is trying to say, but i don’t think kids this day are glued to the tv. It is more on phone and ipads

15% of the total United States GDP is a single company

no, it is not. you struggle to comprehend it because it is not true.

it is comparing different things. one is a valuation, the other is the value of goods and services over a year. the comparision would be with yearly revenue of a company

while a phone signing a video to show that it was captured with the camera is possible, it will be easy too to fake the signature. all it would take would be a hacked device to steal the private key. and even if apple/google/samsung have perfectly secure systems to sign the origin of the video, there would be ton of cheaper phones that would likely won’t.

well, he also asked for the death of nickels and dimes, so maybe not yet

oh, this is not to pay for health care. it is to sustain the carry trade scam that both the american and argentinan goverment are involved in.