• iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    Casual reminder that Gabe Newell owns 6 yachts worth an estimated US$1 billion and that he is not your friend.

    • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Class consciousness leaving my body when the money hoarder owns the store I buy treats from

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Gabe Newell is better than many others, but this is true, the best man on Earth will become an absolute pissbag given power for continuous enough period of time to realize that.

      And the best man on Earth is probably some volunteer medic in some African warzone, not a computer programmer and a tech businessman.

    • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Man that has poured shitloads of money into turning linux into a more mainstream desktop platform is rich

      Wow.

      • Chozo@fedia.io
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        1 day ago

        A huge chunk of that Linux development was paid for by exploiting child gambling.

        Just because one does a few good things with their money, doesn’t justify how they got it.

        • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          Valve was making bank before lootcrates, and lootcrates have been available to kids since trading card games.

            • crushyerbones@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              This dude is 100% correct and I have no idea why people are downvoting him. Sales make people more likely to buy a product due to being limited. Limited time sales work better than lowering prices in the long term.

              It’s why indie games do stuff like release their new games with time-limited 10% off discounts.

        • msage@programming.dev
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          1 day ago

          There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

          Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

          We can nitpick specific examples for everything you want, and we will be correct, but that detracts from the point that Gabe has helped to build things that took decades of slowly getting anywhere.

          I wish we didn’t need it, but we do.

      • Ulrich@feddit.org
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        1 day ago

        Not sure exactly what you’re trying to say here but I guarantee 0% of that wealth came from his investments in Linux support. Their investment in Linux is mostly a way of keeping MS in check, as in “if you try to fuck us the way Apple does with iOS, your customers will leave Windows because they’d rather have something where they can play their giant library of existing games”.

        • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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          24 hours ago

          Hey if Gabe wants to make Linux phones something to be taken seriously I’m all for that. Until then, Gemini creeps me the fuck out so no android. I can tolerate Siri being fucking dumb.

          • ikidd@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            Man, I just can’t stand a phone that seems like it’s built for children to use and not be able to hurt themselves.

          • Ulrich@feddit.org
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            19 hours ago

            I think you missed the point. No one was talking about Android or iOS. We were talking about Windows and Linux.

            Valve’s investment in Linux began back in the Windows Vista days when MS tried to control Windows the same way that Apple does with iOS.

            • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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              16 hours ago

              You literally mentioned iOS above. And my point stands. If Gabe were to start porting those games to a Linux phone of some sort, it would really help that platform, much like he’s helped the Linux community and his own business interests.

              Him going after Microsoft benefits everybody. Him going after Apple could do the same.

              • Ulrich@feddit.org
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                15 hours ago

                You literally mentioned iOS above.

                It’s literally called an analogy. It was not literally the subject of the conversation.

                If Gabe were to start porting those games to a Linux phone of some sort, it would really help that platform

                You’re still literally demonstrating that you don’t understand the motive of supporting Linux, despite me literally just explaining it.

                Gabe literally does not care about the platform, he cares about protecting his revenue stream. Making Linux phones would literally not do that.

                • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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                  15 hours ago

                  I understand this was motivated by his businesses interests. But it’s happens to benefit others as well. Value working to make Linux phones more viable is a bit of a pipe dream but it would certainly whip Google and Apple into shape. And that was my point.

                  • Ulrich@feddit.org
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                    7 hours ago

                    it would certainly whip Google and Apple into shape

                    Probably not anymore than it already does Apple and MS.

      • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        I don’t take issue with rich people. Owning boats worth US$1 billion is past the point of rich.

      • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip
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        23 hours ago

        Man who didn’t want his business to be completely reliant on Microsoft, made a decision to ensure his money in the future

    • Zizzy@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      I just dont understand miney obsessed people. Why the hell do you need multiple yachts? Why even work at this point when you could just … not? You would still afford everything you ever want without ever checking your bank account. I just dont get it.

      • Beacon@fedia.io
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        1 day ago

        He probably enjoys working. Lots of people like to feel like they’re making things happen

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          That includes some bad people too … Well, I dunno how bad, just a certain Larry Ellison still loves working, or so I’ve heard. Or Bill Gates.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          19 hours ago

          Yup, if I was worth an obscene amount, I’d still work, but the nature of my work would change. It sounds like he found something he enjoys that happens to make a ton of money.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              5 hours ago

              Exactly. I have a few ideas for that, but I’m not nearly to the point of funding them:

              • start/join charity to help people get out of debt
              • create a game dev studio to make my dream games
              • finish building my P2P Reddit alternative

              I’m working on the last two in my spare time, but I’m not willing to quit my day job and rely on the those to pay the bills. If I got a windfall, I’d consider it, but of not, I hope to be there in my lifetime 50s. We’ll see.

              I’m sure many (most?) have something similar.

      • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        That’s for every individual reading this to decide. It will either mean something or nothing to you.

        Personally, I don’t think billionaires should exist. Even the ones that I think have done cool things. And I definitely don’t think anyone needs 6 yachts in a world that is burning.

        • Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          Gabe shouldnt be able to have the money he has, but his yacht ownership isn’t the issue many are making when pointing it out. One is his home, full time, any home he was going own was realistically going to suck for the environment. Last I read the others are all like research vessels, emergency medical facilities for disaster relief, and humanitarian aid, and shit. Not like a zuck’s smaller yacht to act as a helipad for his larger yacht thing.

          maybe some day we will have a system that prevents people from having that much money, until then any place with an active enough economy has some assholes owning yachts.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          Personally, I don’t think billionaires should exist. Even the ones that I think have done cool things.

          Yeah, it’s in the intersection of two “doubt” points making one “almost sure” point.

          First, people getting power get spoiled fast, it’s not possible to resist, it’s as if I could have any girl I like and she’d like me and I knew that, just no chance to avoid a sensory burnout after a few months of, eh, feeling that. The possibility that a person can resist that is very small, people like Aristotle Onassis, maybe.

          Second, if one person is worth, say, 12000 times more than another person, it’s important to ask whether they really are, or they can be replaced with like 50 of equals of that another person with proper organization and discipline. The possibility that they really are is almost negligibly small, there are a few people alive for whom one can suggest that and maybe more, but most are like those people we know and love.

          I can imagine Gabe Newel being worth 100, maybe 1000 times me for the humanity, purely financially, but something of bigger orders of magnitude seems preposterous. Not even touching upon money affecting our relative legal power balance, where even factor 2 difference is just morally not acceptable.

          Not that I’m of any bad opinion of Gabe, Steam is one today’s company that both doesn’t abuse its customers too much and does a lot of work on the positive side.

        • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I’d argue that’s precisely when you need 6 yachts, possibly more.

          If the coasts are gonna flood you should porbably own things that float.

            • TachyonTele@piefed.social
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              20 hours ago

              Yeah man, totally a billionaire over here scratching together coins for a lucy. You caught me.

          • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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            1 day ago

            I do, that’s why I said something.

            And nobody has “earned” that much wealth. Absolutely no one.

          • GraveyardOrbit@lemmy.zip
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            1 day ago

            He exploited gambling addictions and taking 30% from devs by doing nothing. Earned is a pretty strong word.

            • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              taking 30% from devs by doing nothing.

              LMAO tell me you are not a dev without telling me.

              Steam does a shitton for devs, the 30% is literally only for sales through their storefront, I can get any amount of keys and resell them wherever I want and give valve nothing, and they’ll still host all my shit, check ownership, handle copy sharing in family libraries, handle patching and beta tests, all for a one time fee that is even refunded if you ever get past a certain amount of copies sold.

              You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.

                • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  If you’re a game dev, then you should also know how valuable every service steam gives is, if you’re just “a dev” then it’s not really relevant beyond understanding how much setting up all of that infrastructure would cost in terms of time, effort, marketing to actually get discoverability, and actual server costs once you need to scale.

                  Either way you should know enough to get that 30% is absolutely worth it.

                  • GraveyardOrbit@lemmy.zip
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                    1 day ago

                    Gaben is a billionaire many times over, he owns half a dozen yachts, and valve has like 100 employees. They could take 5% without changing a single thing and still be fabulously wealthy. Greed corrupts

                  • GraveyardOrbit@lemmy.zip
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                    19 hours ago

                    This isn’t a job interview I’m not obliged to give you my CV. I’m stating an opinion that valve and steam are not the friendly aw shucks corporation they’ve been whitewashed into.

            • snooggums@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              taking 30% from devs by doing nothing.

              If this was true steam would have failed from the start. Instead, the service actually does offer a ton of benefits to both users and developers/publishers including distribution of sales, updates, additional features like forums, friends, and other things that have varying levels of positive or negative benefits to different people. That isn’t even mentioning Proton or the steam deck, just what it between the makers of the games and the people who play them.

              Lootboxes are bullshit, sure. He should have spread out the benefits more to the employees as well. But the 30% cut for ‘nothing’ is incorrect.

              • GraveyardOrbit@lemmy.zip
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                1 day ago

                Valve only cares about Linux so far as their cut is concerned it’s not a humanitarian mission. The entire steam platform is incredibly dated, I mean it’s still 32 bit only for fucks sale, they developed a reasonable feature set two decades ago and have been coasting on their laurels ever since. Devs can’t complain because there’s no better alternative, it’s a captive market.

                • MrGabr@ttrpg.network
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                  1 day ago

                  Steam has been coasting on the fact that everyone shoots themselves in the foot, sure, but you should look into the unparalleled level of “free” (30% cut) marketing support Steam gives to developers. On no other platform could developers end up with the visibility they achieve on Steam with nothing more than very strategic timing and good social media presence. It’s still insanely hard, but the fact that it’s even possible to compete with zero marketing budget against AAA companies speaks volumes.

                  • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip
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                    11 hours ago

                    You only get that “marketing” if your game is already popular. So the 99% of games not getting that visibility are paying the same as those free that are.

      • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Greedily taking up an obscene excess of resources and producing crazy amount of emissions and pollution makes the planet less livable for the rest of us. Yachts do those things.

    • MolochAlter@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Gabe Newell owns 6 yachts worth an estimated US$1 billion

      Unfathomably based, let the man scuba dive in peace.