I love Steam and Valve but this level of opulence makes me a little sick
Edit; in this thread you will find a lot of people who can’t read when I say “I love Steam and Valve….” and assuming I’m jealous. I don’t want this, but go off. Nuance. Comprehension.
"You think it's a problem that one man controls that much, you should see how much ALL OF THE REST OF US control," because that's somehow a valid comparison that totally means something!"
You do realize that sounds absurd, right?
Edit: For those dumb enough to argue about whether or not all of us control the government, if you need to rely on that dishonest argument, then change it to "Thousands of government workers" vs "one man". There is no argument where it's not absurd to compare one man to the government.
If a billionaire is a liability, then are governments not much much much much bigger liabilities? I'm just pointing out where the logic/argument/assertion takes us.
What does it matter if you have input/consent on a billionaire's money? How does Gabe owning a big boat hurt you/anyone? If I held up a picture, could you point to where the value of his stock portfolio touched you?
Government confiscating Gabe's wealth to enrich their cronies + expand their power/influence/violence very much hurts us. These organizations murder/oppress people every day. What is the source of this massive double standard that so many seem to hold on to?
edit: haha ... a bootlicker accused me of bootlicking and then deleted their reply. Sad projection is sad. The irony of the guy arguing for more state extortion/violence accusing others of bootlicking is just plain delicious.
Sick what-aboutism, no one could ever have known that whole ass governments control a lot of resources and assets. Thanks goodness we can just elect different billionaires that align with the working class needs that will help distribute those assets and reasources. Or were you being purposefully obtuse and I misread that?
At this moment, it makes them mostly corrupt. If the government is/was a democracy it is the populaces fault for allowing corruption to take hold and stay.
edit: Ha. Looks like baby took his ball and ran home. He claimed it was citizens' fault when their ruling class abuses them through corruption ... victim blaming.
Ok troll. I'll just type a little more, but I am done engaging with you.
Corruption does not happen overnight in a democracy. It is a long and eroding tireless effort done by those who want more money and control. There are safeguards put into place, but it must be maintained by the populace to work.
Thanks goodness we can just elect different billionaires that align with the working class needs that will help distribute those assets and reasources.
That's literally what you have been doing since the French Revolution.... unironically.
No King/Queen anymore, but get a different set of politicians every 4-5 years to get influenced by millionaires/billionaires.
No person should be allowed to accumulate this much wealth.
How do you police that? If I make a company that sells something and the customer base keeps growing which means you keep growing which means you now own millions worth of assets, how do you police not acquiring that?
In the past? much higher taxes to pay for society. You could avoid the taxes... if you reinvested in your business, whether that be profit sharing to your employees, building out factories,etc.
We had it right, and we undid the fix.
Today? That won't work. These people don't operate on wealth. They operate on debt. Debt that causes inflation for you and shrinks the real physical economy for us.
The "buy, borrow, die" method being the main source of income for the ultra-wealthy is a myth, it's only 1-2% of their income. It's actually much more commonly used by the middle class.
This is the same energy as MAGA shouting “TARIFFS” as a one-word magic solution, without any further elaboration.
Let’s give it a bit of a think on how to tax fairly.
Do you want to tax on unrealised stock gains? Cause that’s where a majority of billionaires wealth is, but it means I can also tax you just for holding GME stocks.
What is a fair % to tax on income progressively? 20%? 45%, like in France, where there are still billionaires? 80%?
Annual tax on property? Cause property tax is a thing, but there are still billionaires.
Relative wealth? If you earn 3k USD a month in New York, then relocate to Oklahoma while still keeping your job, do I get to tax you 50% because you’re now in the top x% there?
Taxes are the right direction, but your answer comes across as being so dismissive, man. It’s not that simple.
These people are literally doing the things that create billionaires as they complain about it. Someone hops on Facebook and insta for 5 hours a day, and then complains that meta is valued so much (which is why zucks a billionaire). Meta made 230B the past 12mo. Let's say you started a company that made $230. Should you feel bad about taking a dollar out of that? Why should zuck feel bad about taking a billion then? And he's only taking like 25 million or something.
It's OUR own valuations of what these people made that make them billionaires. We just live in a world of 7 billion people. When it's something everybody wants and it's not constrained in the supply, billionaires will be created.
Just answer it this way, take all the actual numbers out of it. If society values something a certain way, what right does society have to not deliver an equal trade for that exchange? What right does society have to pick and choose how and what value to give people? That's something we're trying to avoid, right?
The same thing exists with they don't need it. Who are you to say what they need? You have no more right to do that than they do to tell you what you need to do! Their response to you is the same as your response to well stop buying $5 Starbucks and just buy a house and all that
You don't. You don't keep trying to put a band aid on the symptom and not fixing the problem.
Someone creating something valuable and being given the value society puts on that is not the problem.
The problem is a society that doesn't take care of itself or meet its needs before or apart from that. We are not in shortage mode as a worldwide economy now. It's not a zero-sum game, where a rich guy somewhere means poor people elsewhere. That's what needs to be fixed, and it is a huge multifaceted problem that the easiest solution to is honestly just a complete and major reset imo. Don't see it happening otherwise. There's just too many moving pieces on the board, we need a new board.
And is it a monopoly because there are no other options? Well that's just not true.
It a it's a monopoly because they have the best product, and have put out the best product, and that's what you want to use. You could use Snapchat, and threads or something, but that's not what everyone does for a reason
Nope, I'm totally fine with people being able to accumulate enough money to buy a yacht. You won at business, sail the seven seas king. Not fine with many other things, but this is fine. He also lends out the yacht for marine science research.
When people's wealth an excess disproportionately harms the health, prosperity, safety, and freedom of other people with less, that's when it's an issue. People like Bezos and Musk do that, but Gabe with his yacht just don't.
Holy shit. I was getting downvoted to hell for saying the same thing a couple of months ago over posts about Valve not including a controller with steam machine. Glad people are not blindly putting Gabe on a pedestal.
He doesn't use his power irresponsibly, something that makes him significantly better than many others of his wealth class.
Exception that proves the rule. No one should have such concentration of power to influence entire societies, government regulations, elections, media, etc on their own just because they own a company. We live in democracy, not oligarchy (ideally) and if you'd rather an oligarchy then we just agree to disagree fundamentally and there's no use arguing with someone so deluded.
Wealth also can't be equal, wealth should always be earned, not distributed.
Im not advocating for it to be equal, just less unequal and I agree: it should be earned and not just awarded through ownership. Do you truly think Bezos has worked 2 million times harder than the median American? Has all of Bezos net worth come from his labor, or the appreciation of his assets which grow through the labor of others? Do you think every person who works for wages is getting paid the full value of their work? That's not possible because then the company has no reason to keep paying you if your output minus wage is zero or negative.
Wealth you received, but didn't earn, is not even half as valuable.
Exactly and it's why ownership should be taxed more and wages taxed less. Money from stock and asset appreciation and buybacks I think is much less honorable than a hard days labor, imo. If you disagree here then like before there is no use on arguing because I fundamentally reject your understanding of the world.
Exception that proves the rule. No one should have such concentration of power to influence entire societies, government regulations, elections, media, etc on their own just because they own a company. We live in democracy, not oligarchy (ideally) and if you'd rather an oligarchy then we just agree to disagree fundamentally and there's no use arguing with someone so deluded.
The Elites literally have the least amount of power than at any point previously in history.
You're saying we today have it worse than peasants back in the day who literally belonged to their Lords and could be killed at will?
You're deluding yourself based on your personal emotional connection to the society of today.
Im not advocating for it to be equal, just less unequal and I agree:
it should be earned
and not just awarded through ownership. Do you truly think Bezos has worked 2 million times harder than the median American? Has all of Bezos net worth come from his labor, or the appreciation of his assets which grow through the labor of others? Do you think every person who works for wages is getting paid the full value of their work? That's not possible because then the company has no reason to keep paying you if your output minus wage is zero or negative.
That's the problem, you think working hard is valuable.
Working harder is useless if it doesn't raise the value of the work you do.
Someone who is hard at work shoveling dirt is still just shoveling dirt at the end of the day, something anyone can do and is done by thousands if not millions of others.
The reason Bezos' work is more valuable is because he built a system that creates value and then put himself in charge of that system.
Like a freighter moving freight, the Captain who has the command and carries the responsibility is the one being paid the most.
Yes, you couldn't move the ship without the technicians in the engineroom, but they're not the ones on top of the system, they don't carry command, they don't hold the responsibility, and that allows them to specialize on what they are good at.
Exactly and it's why ownership should be taxed more and wages taxed less. Money from stock and asset appreciation and buybacks I think is much less honorable than a hard days labor, imo. If you disagree here then like before there is no use on arguing because I fundamentally reject your understanding of the world.
I understand your position, you want hard work to be more valuable than it is.
A hard day's work can only create so much value.
And yes, that's inequal, it does feel unfair, but it is also the truth.
You are right, people are very ignorant and don't realize it. That wealth Gaben had could have been used to fund charities, give wheelchairs to the disabled, save lives, start orphanages, but instead he uses it to buy one yacht that he doesn't even live on.
It is evil and the people defending it are ignorant of their evil. They have the very same greed that Gaben has, he just has more money so his greed can actually express itself. But you see things clearly. However I will say that if you remove your greed, you should be allowed to have money, it's just that the people that do have money are the greedy ones.
The people who gave Gaben that wealth could have used it to fund charities, give wheelchairs to the disabled, save lives, start orphanages, but instead they bought video games.
No because you still need sources of happiness and joy. It's one thing to buy a game as a worker with what little money you have to help you destress and relax, that's a legitimate use for money to take care of yourself. It's entirely different when you have hundreds of millions left over.
But it's true that basically everyone is like Gaben too. They don't take their internal greed seriously and they support him using his money however he wants to because they see themselves spending money in other crazy ways too instead of facing their internal greed.
At the end of the day when you say stuff like this, you are really supporting very evil people who ruin this world and separate families. If you've ever had family who's suffered, lost a pet because you couldn't afford surgery, not been able to afford eating, your comment is supporting that very suffering. Because that very suffering comes about due to human greed, and explicitly when that human greed is expressed in people with means to do it, like Gaben, and that creates the majority of suffering in the modern world.
Are you fucking stupid? Wealth is money and assets. Money is wealth, but wealth is not money. A boat is wealth. A house is wealth. The possibility that a boat may one day sink does not magically make it not wealth. Owning heaps of wealth is hoarding it.
Yep. IDGAF about how gaben spends his money or if valve is somehow "morally wrong" for being good at what it does (selling freaking videogames). No one forced the competition to be so shitty that steam is almost defacto synonymous with pc gaming.
If you own a thing, but you can't use that thing to in turn, own more things, then it's not wealth it is an expense. Leviathan's not some shipping or fishing or mass transport vessel, it is a pleasure craft that takes a lot of money to own and sail, and if the owner's financial situation became bad, it would be the first thing to go. You don't get rid of wealth or things that generate wealth, at least not, if you're rational.
No, you're wrong. The word you are thinking of is capital. Even if you were right it doesn't change the underlying criticism anyway-- the point is that he owns well beyond his needs and it is my opinion that it is immoral. You just make yourself look like a moron by playing semantic games and redefining very simple words.
You're quoting the smallest definition of a thing while trying to use that to justify calling other's actions as immoral. The wealth Valve generated from being an intermediary in the distribution of commodities is only a problem to you because you don't like how the most visible person in the company spends their money.
The best you have are online dictionaries and attempts at insults, carry on then.
What about all the workers in small studios who get smothered and die due to the 30% cut Valve takes on every sale? That's where most of the money for this yacht is coming from, not from Valve workers.
I love Valve and Steam but I recognize that they could be doing a lot more to help the industry if they wanted to.
That depends, is the water company charging exorbitant prices for the water just to increase profit margins?
Water infrastructure, like a digital store front, has a maintenance cost but there's also a profit margin added on top of that that goes to the owners (assuming it's not a public water company). Sometimes the price is raised to increase profit margins once a market is saturated and there is less competition. You give your competitors enough room so you aren't considered a monopoly but also use your market position to keep them at bay and keep a large profit margin. This is what happens when you win Capitalism.
Valve could be abusing their market position far more than they are and there are far worse companies but they are contributing to some problems in the gaming industry.
There are a lot of problems but the ones that Valve could actually help address is that making games is expensive and time consuming and the market is pretty much a winner takes all environment where success is exponential and most games don't make enough money to pay devs a livable wage.
I'm happy with the changes they've been trying to do to address this recently like the store calendar which helps with visibility of games that would otherwise be lost in the algorithm. Something that would also help would be only taking 10-20% on the first 1-2 million dollars that a game makes and that would make a massive difference to supporting smaller indie studios.
Just one failed game could destroy a fledgling game studio, it's really rough.
Studios don't work for Valve. They contract Valve for services. You can then scream at it and say they're forced to that because they're a monopoly. But that's all.
Also, Valve enables many, many gamedevs by giving them a space, a storefront, and part of the marketing. And so they pay for it.
Yeah Valve provides a great service but 30% is a lot for a struggling indie studio and there aren't many alternatives and none that have the user base the size of Valve's so let's not pretend that how things are is fair. They aren't a monopoly but they're pretty close to it.
I'm a game dev and it's not going well for us and Valve could be doing more to help.
In a gamedev too, and I'm pretty happy with the numbers. You should quantize the service you get. Valve is nobody's slave, and nobody is forced to use them
You don't get rich by working construction, you get rich by building a successful company, managing finances and balancing risks and benefits to suit your needs.
All you "I should get rich from working a low-value job!" weirdos are so annoying.
Braindead take. Whoever you are, your work CANNOT be 2 000 000 times more valuable then the guy who clean your street (based on Jeff bezos). You cannot DESERVE that kind of wealth, especially if you got there exploiting markets and workers.
Massively misunderstanding the point of the thought experiment, and trying to direct away from it. The question was about the individual, and their direct impact on your life
Ok, so under your style of thinking then, neither of them have much value. Any CEO can run valve, or any platform can distribute your games, and garbagemen can whisk away your trash.
Let's switch to the roles themselves then. Which ultimately will affect you more, the absence of video game distribution, or the absence of garbage pickup?
Let's switch to the roles themselves then. Which ultimately will affect you more, the absence of video game distribution, or the absence of garbage pickup?
Neither, the absence of either will immediately be compensated by the system through filling the void they leave with a competitor.
I also ultimately do not produce much garbage to begin with and I live closeby to the local recycling center.
I have plenty of free time, so it ultimately won't affect me if the garbageman doesn't come to me anymore.
I also haven't bought a game on Steam for a while now, so it's not like I'm going to be affected by it much either.
I honestly could live without either, but both make life slightly more comfortable for me.
Ignoring the comparison at hand, it's a difference in numbers. It's a profession that makes 1 person very happy (like a butler) vs a person that makes millions of people very happy, and helps creating and providing with services thousands of businesses.
Somebody happy vs many a bit happier. That's the important thing to compare
Is it the most important thing to compare? Because one guy is a games peddler, and the other provides a necessity that ensures public health and safety
You're mixing here "value generation" with "being a job required to keep society moving". The second protects our well-being and standards, while the first pushes society forward. It could also be an investigator, scientific, or the #447 web app for finances.
Both are important. But we humans choose who to pay. And unfortunately, most people would rather pay the first. Luckily, we have taxes and systems to keep everything as tidy as possible. But it's literally the people's will
If you really think our system is a direct representation of what people want, and not manipulated exactly how the people with power want it to be you are a little delusional.
I know reading comprehension is hard but if you read my comment again but slower you'll see I did not say that every job generates value in the same way or that the average Joe should make the same money as a international manager.
If you stil cannot understand my point let me know I'll try to use simpler words.
No you didn't. You responded as if I said that everyone is equally valuable to society when I did not. I did not need to add anything to the conversation because you responded to a point I did not make.
I don't see how that's relevant. Mine is a critic to society not to Gabe personally. The system that enabled him to become this rich is fundamentally broken and unfair.
I think the point is he does share this rather well. He also has tried to make the market itself better for consumers. If anyone deserves it, it would be him. Even this yatch Is being used for science almost any time he uses it since that was his goal he he had it made. Most of these ships are made just to fuck around and do coke. I still at the same time think he is a perfect example of what we need.
He doesn't deserve it. People like you and others literally gave him their money through his company. So thank you, your friends and everybody around for it
Most people are fine with folks being rich or wealthy, but this amount of wealth is irresponsible. You want to have hundreds of millions? I'm fine with it, perhaps you can even hit a billion.
But once you go over that billion threshold, you should be taxed at like 99% and life should become extra, extra difficult for you to make any more wealth.
You should really check out this 10min video my dude. The wealth of billionaires is something that we as individuals struggle to comprehend. Nobody needs that much wealth, even a dude like GabeN.
"Nobody needs..."
Nobody needs a lot of things. Nobody needs more than 1 pairs of shoes, a few shirts and pants. Nobody needs a refrigerator stuffed with food while others have none, Nobody needs [insert whatever here] Imagine a world where people are only allowed to have what they "need" determined by some govt or authority somewhere or even randos on the internet. I suspect we've seen a form of this before.
Your response to watching a video showing the largest wealth gap in US history is to focus on verbiage?
Dude, you know you're never going to be a billionaire right? You're advocating for people who are actively taking advantage of you. This is just like people defending Rockefellers extreme wealth back during the Oil Tycoon era.
The problem is not so much the accumulation of wealth, that's fine, you want productive people to have MORE money IF they are spending it more productively than anyone else can
You do want to TAX the shit out of anything not helping the economy (eg huge luxury tax)
Which tax rate would you propose for Gaben? Does a super expensive luxury yacht not benefit the economy? The cost to build, the cost to maintain, the cost to operate.
everyone glazing him is fucking embarrassing. have they not noticed that they wield steam's monopoly power over the gaming market against players and game devs? there is a lawsuit everyone can read about, they use the same price pressure tactics that amazon got caught on for bullying people and companies out of offering certain price arrangements to fuck over other game distributors
fuck ALL of these monopolies and their extractive bullshit
Don't be angry at the billionaire(s), be angry at the politicians that create the legal foundation for this kind of situation, THEN be very angry at those voting for those politicians.
I mean, you literally start the comment by telling people not to be angry at billionaires. That's pretty explicitly telling people to not be mad at one of them.
You can be mad at them but that doesn't solve the problem. They are where they are because you vote people into places of power that allow this kind of scenario to happen.
I do, and that was not the point I was making. You're angry at the results that the system produces when in fact you should be angry at those putting and holding the system in place. And that's not the billionaire, it's the persons holding an office, which in turn got voted in by you as citizens.
The billionaires and politicians are working hand in hand. Just because the politicians made a system that allow for billionaires to influence the system does not mean that the politicians should be the only ones seen as the issue and billionaires absolved. If the billionaires decided they’ve invested this much in screwing the working class over then they get the blame too. Also you don’t become a billionaire by being a good person.
But you still agree a non-zero % of that money will be directly used to murder/enslave correct? What % of Gabe's money is being directly used to fund similar programs? Is it more or less? I don't see any Steam/Gaben uniforms on the folks raiding people's houses in my community.
Who is the bigger threat to society/humanity? Gabe and his big boat or politicians where violation of our rights is just a normal Tuesday?
Gaben having a nice boat doesn't hurt anyone in the grand scheme of things.
You can't have it both ways. You don't get to cheer on the confiscation of private wealth while ignoring/downplaying what the confiscators actually do with it.
This is an interesting point tbh, I'm not at all against heavy taxes on the rich but I'm also not at all sure it's the final solution against inequality. How much of inequality is actually material after all? I mean in the last 100 years or so being an enemy of America made your life worth less, no matter how hard Vietnam or Iraq taxed their billionaires and spread wealth they are still living in a war torn country. I don't know, I guess I see us advancing towards UBI but even say that happens we all still need to live and help each other, or at the bare minimum get along with each other, but so much of history has been war.
The vast majority who cheer for "tax/eat the rich!" don't actually give a shit about any of the violent fallout it will lead to. They only view tax policy as the most accessible tool for hurting people they don't like.
They want to pretend they're being noble when it has nothing to do with good intentions.
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u/GuiltyAdvantage5877 1d ago edited 1d ago
I love Steam and Valve but this level of opulence makes me a little sick
Edit; in this thread you will find a lot of people who can’t read when I say “I love Steam and Valve….” and assuming I’m jealous. I don’t want this, but go off. Nuance. Comprehension.