this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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As far as I know Valve isn't one of those companies that employes a hundred thousand minimum-wage slaves, but one that's gotten big, by actually innovating, which is like the only potentially good aspect of capitalism and seems to not be something most corporations do anymore. Of course were this question to ever become relevant he would have to give up most of his wealth, but it's not like he is one of those billionaires that eat babies for breakfast.
The worst thing he does that we know of seems to be trying to collect the fastest iteration of every type of vehicle.
Well no. Valve is involved in a lot of actual gambling with csgo etc. How they are ignoring and willfully profiting from all of the skin casinos etc. is my biggest problem with them. Despite that they are still one of the best big companies i know of.
They allow gambling clutches pearls next you'll tell me they don't drug test their employees!
And they purposely target kids with addictive loot crate mechanics and look the otherway while loot/skins are sold on 3rd party sites.
Maybe GabeN really needs a 7th yacht but maybe he's just a greedy bastard who wants all the money.
Same bullshit people use to ban things "for the children" counter strike is not targeted at children, why should Valve prevent people from selling their skins on 3rd party sites?
Freedom is bad because children? Porn should be banned because children, flavored cigs should be banned because children, flavored alcohol should be banned because children.
Such a stupid argument
Edit: To be clear, I don't like lootboxes and do not play games that use them, I also am not a fan of alcohol or cigs and acknowledge they cause harm, however I see it as a freedom issue, just because I don't like it doesn't mean I should decide what others can do with their body within reason. "Your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins" children are just an excuse to censor things that parents can't be bothered to stop themselves.
I understand and don't necessarily disagree with any of that but let's not pretend GabeN is anything other than another greedy billionaire.
His actions seem to indicate he is in fact not the same as other billionaires
What actions are you referring to? I appreciate Steams contributions to the Linux ecosystem but that's about it, and even that is completely self serving. Locking everything on their platform behind DRM? Taking a 30% cut of everything sold after monopolizing the PC gaming market?
He's a big proponent of microtransactions and was one of the first to introduce lootcrate mechanics for skins. Skins that you can buy/sell with real cash off-site. There's a billion dollar online casino ecosystem where you use skins as chips to play games that's basically targeted at kids. Valve is completely aware of it and it breaks their ToS but they profit greatly so they look the other way and continue to push shitty scratch off ticket loot boxes to kids. There really is no such thing as an ethical billionaire.
Unless you know about some great philanthropic work he's doing?
Look at the things Bill Gates, Elon Musk, etc do when they've amassed wealth.
On both the personal (abusing their power for sex including pedo shit) and economics (abusing their power by killing competition through either legal means, EEE, etc)
They're a monopoly because they're just that good, not because they've killed all competition with unfair practicies and as I've argued numerous times they offer support unmatched on both developer and end user side with various features. They also contribute to a lot of open source projects and have literally bankrolled Linux gaming over the past decade to feeat effect.
Please doe the love of god stop conflating things adults do with "targeted at kids", that's simply untrue. Please show me what game you're describing.
And collusion with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.
He charges 30% like the rest of them, he isn't trying to compete.
Valve innovated a package manager, a store, strict DRM, and gambling / third party cosmetic markets.
Very recently they built the Proton compatibility layer.