Striving for profit is a quality tied to being a company, not being a publicly traded company. Everything they do is in pursuit of making more money. Often times, that means making the best store out there so that we shop with them instead of their competitors, which is how it's supposed to work.

[–] kitnaht@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Everything they do is in pursuit of making more money.

That's where I'm saying you are wrong.

Publicly traded companies are beholden to their shareholders, and MUST strive to make money above all else. Privately held companies can put that profit motive behind other more important motives. Sure, does Valve want to make money? Absolutely - we've all got to make a living.

But is that their ONLY goal at the expense of everything else? Also, clearly not - or we'd have ads on every steam store page, we'd be paying monthly for steam, and you've seen all the shady, shitty things that all the other wanna-be steam competitors have done. So clearly valve does not value profit above everything.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

That's just not true. They're seeking profit by attempting to be the best place to spend your money. Epic would love for Valve to charge users monthly for Steam, but they don't, because it would just drive people away from Steam. They stand to make more money by doing what they're doing. This is not a public versus private thing. Arguably the negative that comes along with public companies is that there are more short term incentives at the expense of long term profit, but they're both doing what they do for profit.