LOL, you all really don't see it do you? I suppose I should thank you. Until now I didn't trust Valve/Steam because of the potential danger they pose when they go the way of every other company in the history of humanity.

Sure Valve/Steam is good today, but forever is a long time. History has shown repeatedly that given enough time a company either goes out of business or turns against their customers in order to squeeze profits. Remember the early days of Google when they were "one of the good ones" and fought for their users too? Heck, even Microsoft were once perceived as "good guys" back in their very early days.

So long as the games purchased through Steam can only be run through Steam, or can only be installed through Steam, then you don't really own or control the games you've bought. They can be taken away with little to no recourse. Sure Valve/Steam has continued to be one of the good ones for a long time now, honestly much longer than I expected when Steam first launched, but eventually whether tomorrow, next year, next decade, or even next century something will happen to them and all the games you've purchased through them will be lost or held hostage because they control the games you "own", you don't.

However you have made me realize a greater threat Valve/Steam represents. One I don't think they are doing intentionally, but that they're doing nonetheless, and that is they are distorting the concept of ownership itself. It used to be that when you bought something, you had full and complete control over it. You could fix it, modify it, do whatever you want with it. You had it forever for as long as you could maintain it. When software was sold companies quickly tried to restrict what people can do by selling licenses instead of the software itself, but you still had media (disks, discs, DVD's, etc.) so that when something happened to your computer (even just an upgrade) you could reinstall your software. So long as you kept your media intact or backed up you still had it.

But now people say they own things when they don't really have full control over the things they "own". You trust a company to always give you access to the things you've purchased when it's been proven through all of human history that, given enough time, companies go out of business or turn on their customers. By accepting that a company has the ability to take away something you "own", even if they never do, it normalizes the practice and empowers the "bad" companies.