this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
1231 points (97.5% liked)
Memes
46272 readers
1930 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Honestly, why ruin something already raking in money hand over fist? Valve is profitable, sustainable, and all around well executed.
Messing with it would cut profits!
The same reason countless studios have destroyed successful IPs (like EA). Sure it’s profitable but it could be MORE profitable. Sales were up last year? Cool story, have sales improved over that this year though??
It's not just shareholders, I mean that's a huge part why public corporations endlessly seek growth. But, even private corporations are beholden to capitalism's inherent growth imperative.
The only way to maintain solvency is to grow. Without growth you can't save, and if you can't save, you can't accumulate investment capital. Which basically means your corporation is stuck in stagnation and is being eaten alive by interest rates.
What? Why? If I'm making a million dollars profit a year, why can't I just put it in a bank account or ETFs or whatever every year?
If you aren't investing back into your company as much as your competitors then they will eventually push you out of the market. It's called the Growth imperative .
Putting back into your company is fine. It's the endless profiteering that sucks, and that ultimately reduces customer experience. Steam keeps it's niche specifically by producing a great customer experience, and getting out of the way.
Steam is also putting back into their company. But there's no need for enshittification. That's a publicly-traded-company, tragedy-of-the-commons thing.