I'm usually totally against huge corporations on principle, but there's definitely one that I can't criticise and maybe even like, Even though I don't buy any of their products.
What does "free pass" mean? None, I guess. I like the companies I do because they don't cross certain lines, why would I then let them cross those lines without adjusting my view of them?
People are saying Valve, and Valve is positioned as THE primary company gamers should never give a "free pass" to (again, whatever that means). I'm not going to allow valve to start running KLA on my machine, I love Proton but the best part are the community forks, I would much rather have an open alternative/competitor to the steam launcher and storefront. The more power valve has, the more I want to see checks on their power, not capitulation from their customer base.
There is no such thing as a free pass to a corporation. All forms of competition are always welcome and encouraged.
None. I'm a Millennial, I will burn any corporate loyalty I might've had in a heartbeat if you so much as think of crossing me. Do you know how many industries my generation has slaughtered in cold blood?! Watch your step and pray I don't notice you enough to decide you're next.
I'd say Valve. It's a gant stinky US-bigtech that destroyed used games and owning of games, buuuut also transformed gaming into a a community and also made linux-gaming not only possible but absolutely great.
Without steam I'd be forced to boot back to fucking winblows just to game something. Thanks to them I don't even have a winblows to boot to anymore, because it became 100% obsolete.
Hard to hate those guys....
Yep Valve is fighting the good fight, even with their shitty gambling. Nothing is perfect..
True. Although I was so pissed at them when their greed made them dissapear the inventory-gifts. Loved buying shit on discounts only to maybe use it later. And so many other things.
But all in all they're indeed doing more good than bad.
It's not greed, it was scams and fraud.
They would love selling you games that sit idle in your inventory, but it created a secondary market for stolen accounts and allowed card thieves to extract money after buying and gifting on Steam.
I don't buy the just-to-protect-us. Yes there was exploiting of regional price differences. They wanted to kill THAT. And they partially did. But if they can take advantage of being global, why can't we? If not for greed. They could've introduced limits on gifts. Like, as an e.g. Russian, I can only gift one gift to one distinct non-russian a month or so. Would still not kill the gifting but eliminate the trading.
I liked hoarding gifts to either redeem some day or just gift away. Being in one of the expensive countries makes it easy now, but not the other way round, which is highly unfair.
Never said they do that to protect us, it's to protect themselves and the publishers.
IIRC there were region restrictions but it was not enough
As far as i remember, there weren't restrictions. Could buy hundreds of games from e.g. Russia and be fine with it.
I think Valve is one of the only companies I don't actively hate. Steam is a pretty solid platform that hasn't been too enshittified over the years, even though the gambling on there is kinda concerning.
The advances in Proton are usually attributed to them. And I like how permissive the family sharing on there is (I personally only own like 2 games and just leech the rest from my husband).
But of course, they might just have a good PR team and be secretly shitty. I'm always down to just hop back to pirating games.
Oh, in that context, Humble Bundle seems pretty decent as well. That's where my husband got most of his steam games from
Valve, by making proton, didn't just benefit gamers. They made Linux a viable platform for most people with proton, and hence are actively fighting against windows and apple really effectively. I'd pick Valve over redbull
Yeah, honestly, companies that aren't publicly traded and just do their own thing tend to be fine to okay-ish. I like Valve. Their software works for me, they were fine to work with, and I like some of the projects they've helped advance.
I hesitate to say that they 'get a free pass'. I don't think any company should get that unless they like... cured aging and gave it away for free or something, but for the time being, they're decent.
I'd also suggest the folks at GoG are pretty good, too.
I love steam and valves hardware products, but the thing is, I'm not the primary customer in their business model. Steams product is digital shelf space in one of the most popular digital arcades, access to which they charge their real primary customers: independent game devs and publishers.
Whatever their activities are outside that, even the much appreciated proton and contribution to Linux gaming, is in the context of capturing more gamers on their platform, making their real product an irresistible choice for their real customers to release their game on, despite the steep per-purchase cut Valve takes.
That's not an entirely...erhm...nice business model imo. It's remarkabley like Amazon, but at least Valve didn't put a bunch of local bookstores out of business becoming the juggernaut they are.
It's not a corp tho, it's a private company
"Corporation" is a legal term; Valve is privately owned, but it's structured as an LLC or Limited Liability Company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation
It is a corporation. Just not publicly traded.
EDIT: I looked it up some more because it says Valve is a company and there's no citation for it being a corporation other than that Valve calls itself one. But a company is a type of corporation.
"Corporation" is a type of company. Valve is a Limited Liability Corporation or LLC.
Valve.
AMD also gets a free pass just for not being Nvidia or Intel. Other than that, if it's Chinese and I know the name of it then it probably gets a free pass.
The same AMD that just sold us out and decided to start purchasing US politicians?
Nvidia is garbage and I hope they crash and burn.
Costco
Welcome to costco, I love you
None of em, dummy! Which shambling, ghoulish, inhuman predatory entity constructed entirely of our stolen wealth and labor is your favourite?
No.
Hell no, sports washing their sugary crap that none of their sponsored sports people ever touch is so transparent.
Let alone the abuse and racism of the F1 team and it's constant infighting.
Well, there was the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
None. Ethically provide valuable products of GTFOH.
Card against humanity… maybe..
Patagonia spends the money they make on good things
Fun fact redbull doesn't actually make the redbull drink. They're in the business of marketing not beverages
I'm fully convinced this meme, and possibly even OP, are the work of Redbull's marketing dept.
Hey guys! What’s your favourite cancer? I know, I know, it’s not fashionable to like tumours. But some of those little guys don’t mean any harm!
fairphone and framework off the top of my head
None but some companies are still businesses that are privately owned by themselves and the Revenue Comes from the products and services that they make and scams where their revenue comes from scamming investors and stock market manipulation that's why Enshittification works. The manipulation is even happening when it benefits the users at the beginning.
The LEGO Group are relatively un-evil
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