I don't really like the tone of the article at points, where it feels like it delves into too much dramatic fluff, but the points it makes are valid and substantial.
Just because a company offers a product or service you enjoy using, or facilitates some convenience for you, does not mean they are doing you or anyone else a favor. Steam is DRM with license agreements that inconvenience customers and limit their control over products they pay for for the sake of Valve's financial gain. Now, there are plenty of companies that do this in a more intrusive way, and a lot of these issues are normal for digital marketplaces, but that doesn't somehow make them immune from criticism. No one NEEDS to do this shit.
Honestly, the more damning thing to me is the shit with the workshop. Valve enjoys making money off of the contributions of other people, and I don't see how people can say that slashing the royalties of content creators is anything other than Valve just trying to get more and more of the pie, even when they don't need to, and even when said creators contribute more of the labor. Once again, just because something like that might be normal doesn't make it necessary. There is no NEED to do this, they obviously prioritize their financial benefit over that of content creators to whatever extent they can get away with. As a consumer, as a developer, as a content creator, your resources, whether they be money, time, or labor, are not things that Valve pursues with respect to what would be fair or in your best interest. They will attempt to capitalize on those as much as they can, and they are not watching out for you to make sure that you get a big enough share when it comes to the revenue you generate, or your control over the copy of the game you brought.
It's not just Valve at all, but it feels like a lot of people hold corporations to a lower standard than the general public, where they react more defensively to criticism of business practices that benefit the company at others' expense, than they do to said practices. Frankly, that's some straight up bullshit.
I really hope I don't see any of the drive-by posters here talk about "paying artists their fair share" in other threads.