Nearly every company in every industry that has been affected by globalization pulls this bullshit. The lesson is: Fuck corporations.
It's sad to see Valve going down the same anti-consumer path as everyone else, though.
In a businessman forum, elsewhere:
Globalization and attempting to bring fair prices to all the markets just leads to exploiters that benefit from both parties.
The lesson is: Fuck consumers.
It's not about corporations, it's about a evergrowing base of users using methods to circumvent their purchases as if they were in a poor country where the developers are kind/smart enough to reduce the price. If anyone drives any of these measures, it's the consumer... not the corporation.
Why do you think some companies blocked languages on UK release of games. It's not (only)because they are "greedy", it's because the consumers were expoliting an advantage due to the pound fall of the recent years. Fair enough, then if you're not going to support the localization for your country by purchasing it there so we can track if the next game will have a translation for your language, we will make the UK version a barebones english version. Fuck corporations?
I'm sorry, I must be an apologist or something because I consider them to be doing the right thing to defend their clients (publishers who put their games on steam), and it affects nothing those playing by the rules.