Because short sighted people WILL kill the golden goose. If not to line their own pockets in the short term, then for some ideology.

how can a DRM platform that tricks you into buying games you could've pirated turn into trash? it was trash from the start.

liquidating all the assets of a company and stripping it down to it's minimal form produces gains for the holder of the company as consumers are much slower to transition away from it to alternatives. And because Steam is as well run as it is there might not be any alternatives which would arise in the short term.

>>90289
what could possibly be stripped out of steam and not cause them to directly lose money?
i doubt all the chat emotes and cosmetics are somehow not lucrative, or that there would be any point in removing cheevos
maybe killing off linux support, but that project grants them access to an even bigger market share
giving paid mods another try would make more sense than that

Inheritors don't have a great track record of continuing the vision of the source of their wealth. Even if they aren't retarded enough to ruin it themselves, anyone who just wants money can sell it off and retire to a life of luxury without a single responsibility.

Never, ever undestimate the ability of greed and shortsightedness to kill companies. Most would choose to make a milion dollars today than a billion dollars next year. The video game industry as a whole suffers from this immensely and it has killed many, many studios that have been acquired. Granted, Steam doesn't really make games these days, but it's still connected to them.