Sick of $@#(*$ Steam and Valve

Let's talk about Valve and Steam in human terms:

Imagine if you once went into a shop, and you saw a small comic in the shop that caught your eye. Now imagine the shop keeping being very charming and telling you how amazing the comic was and how cheap you could buy it!

Imagine now you pick up the comic and goto pay. Now, the shop keeper says "Please, give me your home address, Date of Birth and Email", your still keen for the comic, so maybe you think "well, I'm sure it will be fine".

So you pay for the comic, and as you pay you receive an email advertising the next comic. You leave the shop, and on the way home you wonder why the shop keepers assistant is shadowing you all day. He's not doing anything, he's just sitting their smiling and if you ever ask him or address him he says "Enjoying your comic?". So you tune him out. You arrive home and now theres a small crowd with the shop keeper, all whispering about your journey home. Their all standing at a good distance and being sure to not bother you, but every so often one of them smiles and a note appears in your mail box about some service offered.

So, again you tune out this growing group of gawkers. You get into your house and close the door, but sitting outside just in the public area is the shop assistant. Always smiling taking notes of everything you do. You decide to take a read of your comic. Outside your house, theres a huge rush of action, people shout to one another "she's on page one!" others run away and talk and just out of earshot they are talking about every other reader of the comic on page 1.

You get used to ignoring the crowd now living permenantly just outside your door, used to the benine smiles and constant commentary and behind your back wispering regarding what you do with their comic.

Then, you find a page and you love that page, you go back to read it several times and outside theirs a quiet commotion and then emails arrive suggesting you try this and that and those representitive simile into your window at you. Meanwhile, the comic has begun to embed itself in all your other daily activities. It's already hooked into your email and now it begins to watch what you do online. The massive crowd of people peering in from outside tell you "not to worry!", "it's all so we can improve the comic!" with a vacuus smile.

So, now, your sick of all these people watching you so you go outside and vocally try to shoo them away. They make consilitory noises but make no move to go and ineed chatter futhur about your behviour. You beginning to get mad so you set your dogs on them (turn on your internet security) and, faced with that level of force they scatter.

Ahah, you think to yourself, now I can relax and enjoy my comic in privacy. So you open it  up.

Page 1: Blank.... Page 2: Blank.... your favourite page "inaccessible":.

You remember then how you made a "copy" of your comic "just incase" you lost it, so you fish that out...

The copy is completely inaccessible. Worse the people outside come into your room and begin to rearrange your furnature.

You move to complain and they say, "The comic requires us to all be sitting outside watching you when your read it". Faced with a choice, you could lose page 1 and 2 you think to yourself... but not my beloved page! You reluctantly let the people come back in and mess with all your furnature and the comic is again readable (and now not only are the people outside, but many have moved into your garage some are in your car and one is riding around on your bike).

Finally, resolved,  you accept this constant crowd of smiling snoopers outside your house, and that none of your equipment is now in your direct control (but they are all very nice and get off right awa y when you need your stuff, so nice of them). Some move in because you find the new pages of your comic you buy aren't accessible without these new house guests.

Now, they start being more forceful. You open the comic one day, and page 1 is totaly different and alot smaller. You can't read it without it changing and not in a way you want.

This is Steam and Valve and it's SICK. We live in a world of greedy vendors unwilling to produce items for sale and ownership then they can have the first without granting the second.

We NEED to change the law. Sales MUST come with ownership.