[Lord-Jobo]

Yep. I love valve but let’s not forget that they are making 17+ BILLION dollars a year, 50+ million per employee. Gabe seems like a pretty good guy but he bought a $70m mansion and builds yachts as a side business…

If they want to increase or keep market share they need to eat costs somewhere in this. Maybe they are positioned to do that soon if they anticipate another doubling of ram prices like Microsoft does, we can’t know their plans for future price increases.

Reports I’ve seen suggest that they are making a roughly 10% profit per Gabe Cube right now, which is considerable.

Valve will cite the idea that Sony/nintendo/xbox can sell at a loss because they are bundling in the profit from sold games on their digital stores, but there’s no guarantee Cubers will do the same. But that’s bullshit, we all know 99% of cube users will be buying shit through steam, it’s a weak defense.

[amarant]

Are we really complaining that good people make money now? Is poverty a requirement for being a good person?

Sounds like thinly veiled self-righteous jealousy to me...

[Brian_K_White]

They are not complaining that Gabe makes money. They are pointing out that Valve can actually afford to make the cube affordable while still making money if they wanted to. It's a choice not forced on them they way it's forced on you.

[NekkoDroid]

> They are pointing out that Valve can actually afford to make the cube affordable while still making money if they wanted to.

They could, but since its literally just a PC it would just be subsidising PCs for something they likely aren't gonna make their money back, unlike XBOX or PlayStation, which are locked down and you are forced to use their store where they make the money back.

Will they make some of the subsidisation back? Sure, there will be some gamers that will be able to buy it just from pure numbers, but I feel like a massive chunk would just end up as office PCs with Windows on them in some office if subsidised.

The deck might make more sense to subsidise, but to do it for the gabecube doesn't make sense in the world we live in.

[mcphage]

> Is poverty a requirement for being a good person?

Do you suppose those are the only two options? Poverty or billionaire?

[Gormo]

In fact, there is no relationship whatsoever between these considerations.

[the_doctah]

>Gabe seems like a pretty good guy but he bought a $70m mansion and builds yachts as a side business…

As if that was a counterexample to him being a good guy? Who cares what he buys. It's his money and its legal. The "billionaire bad" brainwashing needs to stop.

[esseph]

> The "billionaire bad" brainwashing needs to stop.

No, not until the problem goes away.

"But it will always exist."

Noted.

[Gormo]

Until what problem goes away? What are you talking about?

[esseph]

The wealth gap; it is extremely unhealthy for a functioning society. It's kind of odd anyone has to spell it out unless your comment is (possibly) a rhetorical fishing expedition. I'm clearly not the only one that thinks this.

[Gormo]

Well, it's not so much a "rhetorical fishing expedition" as much as I just initially gave you the benefit of the doubt, and didn't assume you were aiming to divert the thread into a platform for inane propaganda. Sadly, the doubt did not resolve in your favor.

Needless to say, people who have little or nothing to do with each other having different levels of wealth as a consequence of activities entirely unrelated to one another is not a "problem" that needs to be solved. People having their rights violated or opportunities artificially limited is a problem, but attempting to attribute that sort of problem to someone else, somewhere else, not being artificially transgressed against is disingenuous and fallacious.

[esseph]

> it's not so much a "rhetorical fishing expedition"

After your post I reviewed the first page of your comment history and I was pretty sure I knew where you would stand on this issue.

> as much as I just initially gave you the benefit of the doubt

And I was proven correct in my assumption.

> Sadly, the doubt did not resolve in your favor.

Once you get off your soapbox, reality may find you surrounded by pitchforks.

> people who have little or nothing to do with each other having different levels of wealth as a consequence of activities entirely unrelated to one another

This is where our conversation ends, because we have a different interpretation of value creation and reality, and neither one of us will change the other's mind.

> People having their rights violated or opportunities artificially limited is a problem

The billionaire class have different rights and opportunities. They have different tools in the financial and political system. They have more sway in the political system, and they can greatly impact how things play out. Is it a representative government? Yes. But currently capital allocation and mechanisms see to it that the representation and opportunities are limited, which is the entire problem caused by having such wealth disparity. It is thorn in the side of democracy, and antithetical to freedom.