Yeah Valve/Steam seem relatively decent/ethical now (eg. Steam deck being a PC u can install what u want on and modify and repair), but it's just cus the average tech company has gotten so bad. When I 1st saw steam I was appalled, its a DRM system, a program running on my system that has no function and I dont want, + a bunch of online or social features I dont give a shit about.. and none of that has changed.
Unfortunately, even beyond DRM, online competitive gaming is both an extremely popular hobby AND the most direct use case for trusted computing outside of top secret work. There simply can't be a fun, popular online competitive game without strict verification of the client software to keep out cheating, so Steam offers an extremely valuable service in this alone (as do other DRM schemes).
The alternative to Steam used to be limited use CD keys. Steam's not perfect but it's better than hoping you haven't re-installed the thing you paid for one too many times.
DRM in Steam is mostly up to the developers. They provide the API for it but hardly anyone implements it. I'm fairly sure I can launch most of my library without Steam even running.
