Storage and bandwidth definitely weren’t cheap in 2003. Additionally Steam provides features that a brick and mortar store could never even think of providing, including updates, DRM, instant access to global consumers, community features, in-depth data analytics, and the ability to adjust pricing in real time.

While a lot of the work Valve has put in Steam seems both obvious and ubiquitous today, these were features they pioneered for both developers and consumers.

I’d also like to point out that the only digital marketplace I’m aware of that charges less than 30% by default (Epic) is famous for losing billions of dollars in the endeavor.

Before steam, digital sales of games wasn’t really a thing outside of a few niche examples. The 30% cut was the same percentage that retail stores were taking.

More like low below (the surface)

Slipknot is not where I saw this thread going but I’m here for it.

5.56 NATO doesn’t “fly” - it produces no lift and falls at 8 m/s²

Yes, I was referring specifically to presidential elections and the electoral college.

Citizens in the US don’t have a constitutional right to vote. States are granted electors based (roughly) on their population that can vote and are given broad authority in how to determine how these electors are selected. Technically a state could decide how to vote based on drawing names out of a hat.

PonyOS actually uses its own custom kernel that isn’t based on Linux.

It’s not useful to compare health insurance profit margins to other industries because the Federal Government requires that they spend 80% of all premium revenue on care. This is effectively a cap on profits and also creates an incentive for insurance companies to pay higher costs for care so they can make more profit.

Quantum computers are only good at a very narrow subset of tasks. None of those tasks are related to Neural Networks, AGI, or the emulation of neurons.

I did a few years in a Security Architecture role at a large enterprise. The amount of times I had to explain basic stuff to Enterprise Architects, Principal Engineers, and Principal developers with decades of experience was truly mind numbing.