including getting bought-out by a company that is (microsoft, ea, sony, etc)

I cannot emphasize this enough. This is the entire modus operandi when it comes to venture capital and "entrepreneurs" in industry.

They have a singular talent: exploitation. Be it a mineral rich vein under a mountain, an oil/gas field, middle-class folks with spending cash, gig workers, or information economy workers (e.g. programmers), it's just one more resource to convert into wealth. Left unchecked, all the social evils we see from this thinking come into play: inequality, slavery, usury, fascism, and so on. The above even applies to their own employees, as there is no distinction in class of human being outside of the status of "owner". There is no higher calling, no alternative focus. There are only resources and money.

The instant you make "keeping the company alive", "make a product people actually want", or even "employ people"a focus, the goal is no longer exploitative. It's arguably more socialist, even if the overall goal is to continue to thrive as a for-profit business. As a result, it's not useful to these jackals as-is. It must first be converted into parts to be exploited.

Such a thing is also a pariah in capitalist circles. They fucking hate it. The bigger Valve gets, the more hit-pieces we see in the media. Also, the more we see CEOs circle the wagons when the likes of Epic attempts to topple their market dominance somehow, and it always fails. Socialist corporate ju-jitsu appears to be a winning strategy, and thank goodness.

Also not be shitbag garbage monsters.

If Valve just made using Steam as soul-crushingly painful as we imagine it must, we might have a chance! Imagine what could be if the wizards behind the Google Play Store took a shot at making Steam!

Make. A. Better. Product.

Certainly easier said than done when it comes to Steam, given how much of a head start they have and the resources available to them to compete with any serious attempt, but it feels impossible to Tim because he spent all of Epic's time and money whining, litigating, and giving out free games instead of making the EGS better for consumers.

Coming up on 8 years since its initial launch and they're only now adding "advanced digital commerce technology" like a shopping cart. All bluster no substance.

There's also the whole thing where Tim Sweeney is such a dick constantly running his mouth that I hate him so much I won't even use his platform for free stuff. And there have been games I actually wanted that were offered. I still chose Steam and / or GoG over literally free because fuck that guy and the AI slop version of a horse he rode in on.

They seem to be keeping themselves afloat at least. Theirs is the only launcher I've bothered installing besides Steams.

I was thinking around the same, more specifically that what they're saying is that "in the long run companies managed to produce value for shareholders actually produce less value that companies managed to produce value for a single private owner".

This is actually pretty consistent with what we see in many industries with both kinds of companies and a pretty daming indictment of publicly traded companies as a mechanism for increasing value creation.

shareholders in public companies dont care about the health of the business

Lol, this is an unironically awesome takeaway.

Anyone who isn't head deep in Capitalism understands that, yeah.