I think a lot of people realized years ago that Valve is a corporation dedicated to their own self-interest, just like Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo.
That being said, it is rather odd how many people see Value as "the good guys".
The big difference with Valve is that they don't really care about the details of pleasing the consumer. They have no real competition so they don't need to bother with things people would complain about elsewhere. Customer service? Pff, who cares. There are mini-games to make for the next sale. Features customers ask for over and over? Not unless they're features that can be used to leverage more profit.
Valve is a company with so much power over the market that they can do what they want without any real repercussions, kind of like Google or Microsoft with Windows. It doesn't actually matter if people complain and they know that so they just do what they want when they want.
I mean, this is a company that has bragged before that they make more per employee than Apple. They could afford things like quality customer service if they wanted to do so or felt the need to stay ahead of the competition.
Of course, they should also get credit for not fucking up so badly that people carried grudges for years--hi there, GFWL. I'll take Valve over Microsoft any day of the week.
