Since he left, I will absorb his old ways as much possible to make up for his absence. Not fully familiar as to how he would have responded so I took a huge guess lol

I think you should just wait...

Easy answer: Because its steam

Longer answer:

Because some of us don't like the idea of having to have Steam for everything, just like some of us don't want to connect every single account into one account, to have Google connect to facebook and facebook connect to everything else.

Some of us don't like the idea of needing Steam to start up Winamp, or needing Steam to listen to the newest Album of our favorit artist. Some of us don't want to have a company dictate our lives for us. And if you don't know what i mean ask the 1,8% of Valves user Base that still had been using Windows ME, when Valve decided their Steam Program would no longer support and start up on Windows ME in 2007.

Some of us just don't like ideologies like the ones of Facebook, Google and Valve, which might seem like they are good for the customer, but in the end are basically just about selling people out and ripping them off.

But i understand the concept of Companies being interested in their own best interests first and everyone elses last and the idea that even if you get something for free its not because of altruisem of the people, but because they most likely benefit from it in one way or the other (one can even argue that people working at charities do it for themselves and not for the others), and that at the end of the day the younger generation that grows up with constant tweets about their life and pictures on facebook which show them totally sloshed (and then wondering why noone wants to hire them in 10-15 years, because neither facebook nor the internet know the meaning of the word delete), have no real concept of the idea why Privacy is something important and why you wouldn't want to have big brother watching you 24/7 and of course why you wouldn't want to have everything you are consolidated on one spot to be profiled by whoever needs a profile about you.

And you might think that sounds paranoid? Well Google is making its money by setting up Profiles, even roaming profiles which they sell to the advertising companies. Apple is making its money by locking people out.

Valve does the same. Its why Valve wants to invest into Linux, because now Windows 8 is coming to the fore and tries to lock everyone out that isn't Windows and doesn't buy over the Windows Market place, which of course makes Valve push for Linux.

Valve gave us Teamfortress to make sure we use Steam, because its easier to have everything on steam. Except that Valve gets royalities for everyone using steam to distribute their stuff.

And you might think having Steam is a good thing, because of the Sales? Well thats only as long as a good thing as long as you happen to live in those parts of the world were Steam doesn't patronize you. If you happen to life in germany, for example, well then you are screwed, because Steam even limits you from activating imported video games, which most of the german adult gamers import because they don't want the low violence version of a game. They want the same experiance as everyone else. And if you happen to life in a less fortunate country, say poland, you can end up not getting access to the game at all, because they won't sell it you. Service is not available.

Now if you happen to know about germany and youtube and about 90% of the music content of youtube being locked for germany, because of some deals with the distribution sites, could you possibly imagine why someone wouldn't want to purchase Music via Steam? Well, i give you a hint. Imagine what happens if they use the "can't activate if not sold" practice with Music as well?

And then what happens if people decide not to go Windows 8 or Linux, but remain with Windows 7 and Valve decides its time they upgrade. Basically Valve can push you into a system of their choice. They can do it today already.

They could offer their Valve OS tomorrow and say "Well guys, you have games worth 1000$ on your account, and if you want to use it, you have to install Valve OS, because next month we will stop supporting Windows, Mac and Linux"

And now imagine you don't just have your Games on Steam. Imagine you have your whole Music Collection on steam.

Maybe, just maybe, that idea would make you realize why people might not want everything they have being dictated by one company.

Edit:
And all that doesn't even consider the very problem of Steams popularity making more and more games being produced as Steam only, which only forces people to use Steam, that might not even want to use Steam, because of the problem described above.

If i now imagine that there will be artists, especially those who aren't mainstream, will start to publish their songs exclusive on Steam... then i will not only be forced to use Steam for Video Games, but also for Music.

thanks captain obvious!

sure,
4, 8, 15, 25 , 47 , 42

Really? What an epiphany, thanks so much for this insightful comment.

This would be a great way to get people to learn more aspects of the software, so I can see this happening.

Actually, Microsoft already has achievments in one of their programs - MS Visual Studio achievments.

I unlocked "Save 50 projects in Photoshop"

:-D

Why would the developers want Valve to take a cut, if they can sell it on their site and get all the profit? I really don't think people would buy software they don't have any need for just because it's cheap. It's not like games because you might actually play the game someday, but you wouldn't use software that is completely useless to you.