I've long had a hard time taking Polygon seriously, and this isn't doing a whole lot to change that.

The author seems hellbent on ignoring context. A lot of us did resist Steam when it first came out. I didn't install it until 2006, and that was only to play CS Source. To this day, I always check to see if a game is available from GoG, then from Humble, and only then from Steam. Meanwhile things have improved -- offline mode is now actually a thing, and they're doing refunds. Sure it took longer than it should have, but I'm not sure it deserves the article's level of criticism. Plus, there's a lot to like about Steam: I like not having to keep track of 800 CDs that I will invariably lose. I like cloud saves so that I don't lose progress switching computers or if I uninstall the game for a time. GoG, Humble, Origin, all of those platforms only came along once Valve showed that they could be viable.

For the rest, it's basically the author saying "I wish a corporation were beneficent," while ignoring the fact that corporations exist for profit and nothing else. Is this really news for anyone?