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Rant: Valve's new Steam Deck screws speak volumes about their ethos. (feddit.nl)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In case you're out of the loop, the old Steam Deck had Philips screws that screwed into self-tapping plastic holes. This lead to occasional stripped threads and often stripped screwheads.

Valve absolutely did not have to change their screws, and its probably actually against their best interests. While other companies around the world are constantly in search of new ways to screw their own consumers, Valve goes out of their way to update their screws to make them easier to install/remove by changing to torx screws and added metal threads in the backplate. Those who know anything about mechanical engineering know this is not an insignificant amount of effort they put into it.

This is a small change that makes a huge impact, and speaks volumes about the ethos of the company. It says:

We want to make our devices last longer, and be easier to repair.
If you want to buy the cheaper tier and save yourself a few bucks by installing whatever SSD you want, go right ahead.
We trust you to make decisions for yourself.
Most importantly, we respect you, the consumer, and want you to fully own and control the devices we sell.

Valve is by no means perfect, and there's plenty more they could be doing, but they've earned my respect and my patronage and I won't buy games from anywhere else. I will buy whatever future products they sell, even if I don't think I'll use them regularly.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If valve were public, and required to make a lot more money than the previous quarter, they would absolutely need (want?) to get the maximum amount of money from wherever they could. It's what I think it's happening with netflix & others. It doesn't matter that (hypotetically) they make a billion dolars of revenue. They need to make more next quarter. So they need to raise prices, forbid account sharing, reduce content quarity, anything to earn as much money as possible for next quarter.

Volvo could earn a billion dollars, and if they don't want to earn more, they could happily stay the same. They might even want to make moves thinking on the long term, such as keep customers happy and excited, or invest in new technologies like proton. Compared to netflix execs, who don't care about the long term, they care about next quarter.

I don't know a lot about the stock market, but it looks stupid to me to bet on infinite growth. If the company earns money, and I own shares, shouldn't I earn money via dividends? It looks to me like the only way to make money is to buy low and sell high? Or is that just greed?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If the company earns money, and I own shares, shouldn't I earn money via dividends?

You do. Companies give dividends all the time (well, every x months, usually at least yearly).

It looks to me like the only way to make money is to buy low and sell high? Or is that just greed?

Just greed... mostly. A lot of people want to "get rich quick", and a bunch of already rich people like to gamble to get even richer, so a lot of market volatility comes from greed... but a share price with good growth expectations can make it attractive enough that the company may decide to give lower dividends (no need to attract people), so if you can "buy low, sell high", you may still want to do it regardless.

You can still ride the market mostly on dividends by diversifying and investing into multiple companies whose share prices will average out in the long run (picking the right diversified portfolio, is an art on itself).

need to make more next quarter

That's mostly an effect of tying C-suite compensations too closely to share prices, with no further checks in place. When the main driving force behind the decision makers is increasing share prices, they'll happily burn down the whole company, cash out, and jump ship.

Sometimes it's done on purpose, when some long-time investors grow tired and decide to cash out, maybe because they expect a change in the market and the company becoming less competitive or even obsolete. If the expected changes are big enough, it's easier to start a new company from scratch, than to restructure an old behemoth with thousands of people used to doing things "like they've always been done".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The fact that you said Volvo on accident brings me back to the old ThioJoe troll days