[username332211]

Valve is still a corporation with a single majority shareholder.

And I can't imagine a restaurant could work the same way as Valve. In a restaurant, you have to feed people day in day out. You can't deliver a Michelin-quality meal when the inspiration hits you and nothing when it doesn't.

Valve also seems to have a strangely forgiving customer base. I don't think I've ever seen anyone complain about micro-transactions in their games, whereas other publishers seem to get a lot of hate for it. (Then again, ever since I stopped playing games, I've began to notice that each publisher had their own unique method of fleecing their customer base, so it may be that Valve got the players that tolerate micro-transactions, whereas others would have the ones who tolerate endless DLCs.)

[jabroni_salad]

If you hang out with the tf2 people you might not see much in the way of good vibes towards valve. The community in that game persists despite valve, not because of them.