By definition, Steam is digital rights management. So is software keys. Many of us have accepted DRM as commonplace and tend to ignore it's presence, but being a tech guy it annoys me on a day to day basis.
As for steam not being a problem, I disagree. My understanding is that Half Life 2 is 64-bit capable, so I tried installing it and running it on my Windows XP Professional 64-bit OS. The game would not work. I eventually had to conclude that steam was not 64-bit and was preventing me from playing Half Life 2. I looked into it recently and found out that there is a 64-bit steam now that is supposed to automatically install, but it didn't then.