- nullify3112@lemmy.worldEnglish1 month
I think that’s it’s a slap in the face to remind us all that Valve is a for profit company.
They are supporting Linux, they make repairable hardware, proton is amazing, but they’re doing it so they can own the full stack and not have to deal with another party’s transaction fees when selling games.
They aren’t going to sell a product if they don’t make a profit. They want to make more profit. They have the potential to enshitify at any moment. We can all be excited about Steam hardware but how is it different than Apple locking its customers in a walled garden?
What happens if they decide to make all the games you bought unavailable for licensing reasons? What happens if they shut down and suddenly all your games are gone? What happens if they lock their hardware?
- Nibodhika@lemmy.worldEnglish1 month
I mean, no one ever doubted Valve was a for profit company.
They aren’t going to sell a product if they don’t make a profit.
Obvious
They want to make more profit.
O don’t think that’s what’s happening here, RAM prices are ridiculously high, and the Deck has RAM and SSD. We also know they’re selling it close to cost so they wouldn’t have been able to take the hit on those increases, and the price increase seems to be exactly what the components have increased in price.
They have the potential to enshitify at any moment.
That’s also true, and something we should be weary of, but I don’t think it’s warranted on this case.
how is it different than Apple locking its customers in a walled garden?
Because their hardware is not locked. You can do whatever you want with your Deck. Wanna pirate games? Go ahead, wanna install windows in it? Be my guest. That’s part of the reason why Valve can’t sell these cheaper than manufacturing cost like most consoles are, because it’s an open architecture people would just buy it in bulk to do servers and shit like they did with the PS3 before it was locked down for this exact reason.
What happens if they decide to make all the games you bought unavailable for licensing reasons? What happens if they shut down and suddenly all your games are gone What happens if they lock their hardware?
What happens if the government starts abducting children for their secret brainwashing institution? What happens if they shut down all personal own property? What happens if they lock all of the frontier?.. Don’t you think you’re overreacting a little bit to RAM being more expensive and a product that has RAM becoming more expensive too?
1 monthc/NoStupidQuestions style question:
Why is making enough RAM to go around so hard now? I know the cause of it - AI cunts - but what is the actual bottleneck in the production of RAM that means it can’t be pumped out fast enough to meet demand?
- Nibodhika@lemmy.worldEnglish1 month
The short version is imagine the world has a production capability of X sticks of RAM per day. Up until now it consumed X sticks of RAM and all was good. Suddenly a new player enters the market that requires Y sticks of RAM and is willing to pay a lot more than everyone else, now the total amount of RAM is X-Y (and just to give you an idea of the size of the problem Y is approximately 40% of X). Factories might start working more and try to produce more, and they might increase productivity by Z, but if Z<Y we’re still in a deficit so we have over demand and lack of production. RAM factories are not made overnight, so it takes months if not years to open new ones and bump the amount that’s actually able to be produced.
It will pass, lots of companies are rushing to open more factories, China has started producing RAM too, plus the new player that was buying Y before and signed to do so for months to come is trying to buy less now.
