Gabe Newell's comments about fearing Microsoft's push for a closed platform continue to ring true today.
Their UWP agenda to further this plan is evident enough. It doesn't matter how many features they add to it. The user is no longer the admin of their own PC in Microsoft's eyes. The way they're pushing Windows 10 installs is disgusting. They continue to push updates that removes the user's ability to disable unwanted features. You used to be able to disable the Windows Store, now it's only for Enterprise users. You used to be able to easily disable Cortana, now only for Pro and above users, and hidden in the Group policy. You used to be able to manually choose which Windows updates you wanted to install, decide whether to download, and whether to install, and now you're very limited in your choices, depending on your OS version, and hidden away in the Group policy. You can't completely uninstall OneDrive, without it coming back in an update. They change your Windows default programs without your knowledge. How can anyone continue to defend Microsoft? And this is only some their
recent actions.
An open-platform is, and has always been key to the innovations of the PC platform, both when it comes to video games, as other industries. Microsoft is in a position to endanger this, and has actively attempted to, starting with Windows 8. There has been enough negative press that they've had to resort to a strategy of slowly taking away these
options.
Your comment reeks of personal bias and ignorance. SteamOS was never intended as a replacement to a desktop OS. It's merely a front-end, a modified Debian, that boots directly into Steam's big picture mode, with some optimizations. It's prime purpose was for PCs that would be used in the living room, like a console, such as Steam Machines. The alternative to Windows is simply Linux, which Valve has pushed strongly for since those initial comments, and the result is an increase by several fold of Linux-compatible games on Steam. It's not something that can happen from day to night, but a process of making slowly making Linux a viable alternative as a security measure against Microsoft's agenda.