Yeah, he waxes on about how to stop piracy by offering a better service than piracy. Then he allows Denuvo and 3rd party EULAs onto Steam. Both of those can make your game unplayable if you aren't connected to the internet. Denuvo in particular is a computer virus with kernel access to your rig. 

If Steam didn't allow DRM, it'd be in a position not all that unlike GOG. GOG is great, but it's not like it's thriving like Steam. I hate DRM with a passion, but from a business standpoint, not allowing DRM is a very challenging position.

Not sure who think he's Santa Claus figure.

This move seems kinda bizarre - I get that component prices went up, but if you look at something like AYN Thor Max, with 16gb RAM and 1TB SSD, it went from $449 to $549 (in two steps), and AYN is certainly not subsidizing their hardware. What Valve announced is just beyond silly.

Buy a Switch 2 while you still can.

As soon as my current hardware dies, gaming is pretty much over for me, lol

Jesus, this is insane.

I planned to build a gaming PC a while ago, just when prices startet to go up. And I know I won't game that much on a PC, so I don't want to spend too much money on it. Just a few days ago I talked to a friend about a Steam Deck as an alternative, lol. Guess that's not an option anymore.

I do wonder whether there is some over adjustment both from them and Sony in order to compensate for the much smaller margins of their next machine. I.e steam machine and PS6 will match these prices, not exceed them.

In any case there seems to be hope that 2028 will be the year Chinese Manufacturers save the day & the market See's a dip (many ai investments going bust)... Let's hope.

This, if you have any interest at all, get it ASAP, who knows what prices will be like a year from now if this insanity continues.

Your best bet is to just build it with used parts and stick to an older ddr4 build. A Ryzen 5000 build is still a very capable machine and ddr4 hasn't been nearly as effected by the memory crisis as ddr5.