@atomicpoet
Hasn't Apple's current (enshittified) reputation eclipsed its original spunky underdog reputation?

I was honestly confused by the opening tag line and didn't realize you were talking an Apple that no longer exists.

@virtuous_sloth You’ve read my entire post. What do you think I’m saying?

@atomicpoet Steam is doing what you wish the old Apple would have done?

@atomicpoet
Perhaps you are contrasting what Apple did w/ the Mach kernel & being closed with Steam using the same combined product strategy with the Linux kernel (and wider open source userspace) to produce an open ecosystem akin the the current closed Apple ecosystem.

I just got derailed momentarily but the phrase "the Apple of Linux" which immediately brings to mind the Apple of today and a whole lot of confusion for me understanding your larger point. It was a distraction to your point.

@virtuous_sloth Nope, I never mentioned kernels. That word was never once in my text.

@atomicpoet I didn't say you said kernel.

I'm sorry I'm having this affect on you. I'm not trying to disagree with anything you said.

Bruce Elrick No, I just think there’s a clear communications gap. For some reason, I think we’re misfiring.

By the way, try not to read too much into my tone. Typically, I use AI to smooth that over, but when I replied to you, I wasn’t using it.

@atomicpoet
Gotcha.

What I was trying to relate to you was that when I started to understand what you were saying by the end I realized that my negative perception of Apple in its current form (the Doctorow-enshitified one) had derailed me at the beginning of reading and, as a result, it took me longer to absorb what you were getting across.

I wasn't sure if you were aware of that pitfall, which I judged others might fall into so I wanted to let you know.

@atomicpoet
To elaborate, you seem to be giving Valve credit for using Apple product design and integration techniques and, perhaps as well, giving it kudos for doing so using open source which is decidedly not proprietary.

This conflicted with the very proprietary nature of Apple, used for good against other proprietary companies (MS) when it was the underdog but used against customers now.

Those negative perceptions seemed at odd with giving Valve kudos.

Bruce Elrick To be clear, I’m not handing Valve a gold star. I’m pointing out that they’re assembling an Apple-style ecosystem—one that breeds the kind of cult-level enthusiasm that lets a company move from gaming to gaming-adjacent to not-gaming-at-all without anyone blinking. That’s the strategy. That’s the play.

Could it all slide into enshittification someday? Absolutely. Every ecosystem eventually flirts with it. The difference is that Valve’s private structure gives them less pressure to squeeze the user base the way a publicly traded giant like Apple has to. Less pressure doesn’t mean zero risk—but it does change the incentives.

And none of this is about sentiment. Plenty of people dislike Valve, and they often dislike them for the exact same structural reasons they dislike Apple. Strong ecosystems create strong opinions.

But there’s a flip side: ecosystems also create coherence. A focused product line that talks to itself. A user experience that feels seamless instead of stitched together. Historically, Linux has been criticized for lacking this. Valve is actively building it. In real time. For millions of people who never thought they’d voluntarily touch Linux.