Did he/she lie? Steam is not even the least bad launcher. GOG offers DRM free games that don't even require a launcher.
Also don't forget that Valve probaly insane ammount of money with Microtransactions and Lootboxes and has essentially implemented NFTs into their games (without a blockchain) years before that word even existed.
True then; true now. People who asskiss Valve (and Gaben by extension) are victims of years of effective marketing. Valve is as greedy and duplicitous as any other corporation. You're just looking at it through rose colored glasses because it's the primary mechanism by which you access your hobby.
Exactly, its so wild how the gaming sheepherd got up in arms about NFTs and microtransactions when this shit existed for years in CS:GO, TF2 and Dota 2 and was 100% tollerated.
Also TF2 - the balls of this company to add new cases and cosmetics while the game was overrun with hackers and bots... my lord!