There's two main reasons why I like physical media:
- Longevity. If the maker/publisher of the game doesn't want to support it anymore or goes broke, I still have the game.
- Used game market. I've got a backlog of PS4 games I got cheap because they still existed after demand went down, so prices went down.
Steam meets both of those in different ways.
- Any game I've purchased on Steam has remained available to install, even though some of them aren't available for sale anymore via Steam. If a publisher folds, Steam can still serve their files to people who bought the game before it folded. This might change in the future and there might be exceptions where a publisher went to court to stop Steam from serving the files (not that I know of any cases of this, just acknowledging the possibility exists here while it doesn't for physical games you already own), but so far so good.
- Steam sales are often better than used game sales. Sure, not all publishers participate in them, but my steam backlog dwarfs my console backlog because I can often buy multiple games for the price of one used disc game.
They are both ultimately in it for greed, but a different kind of greed. Sony wants the short term make most profits this quarter every quarter, even if this quarter's strategy hurts next quarter, that's a problem for next quarter.
Valve seems to at least understand that not taking its users for granted and forcing shitty options on them to make a quick buck will mean they are more willing to continue spending money on their shit.
Also, Valve didn't come in trying to end physical media, they were a digital service from the start. Similarly, I had no problem with some games on the PS store not having physical releases and I've even bought a few. My issue is that the physical disc drive is one of the main reasons I even have a ps5, so saying they won't be doing them anymore mostly just means that the ps6 won't be as interesting to me. I'm not even really mad, just disappointed and moving on.