It wasn’t the ceo of steam who said you should get used to not owning games either. https://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-director-says-gamers-will-get-more-comfortable-not-owning-games-and-hes-not-wrong/
You can own certain Steam games as much as you can own them on GOG, which is to say it’s completely up to the publisher/devs. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam
The thing is that Steam doesn’t have a history of shutting down a significant fraction of games they have available by themselves. Hence people don’t criticize them.
Also you can (not saying that you should, I personally don’t trust Gabe) put some tust in a private owned company if you trust the owners.
In case of public companies they are forced by law and major shareholders into making shortsighted decisions and prioritizing profit only.
Yeah - but the situation there is literally the same as with all the other launchers besides GOG
For some reason steam just has a huge fanclub that doesn’t accept any kind of criticism
The reason for that fanclub is that publishing a game on Steam does NOT require you to use any DRM at all. That’s a choice every publisher makes for themselves.
Furthermore, the Steam DRM itself is weak af (as in “circumvention has been automated”) and as non-invasive as it gets (a simple licence check). All of this is in line with their public stance (“Piracy is a service problem”).
I pirate more shit than i could ever play, but still buy games on Steam (But only the stuff i really want to keep playing like Baldurs Gate 3, or small indie titles that are just gems (i have to namedrop ΔV: Rings of Saturn and Star Valor here, because i come back to them ALL the time)