Right now Valve is somewhat fair with its users, but since your games are tied to your steam account which could be deactivated at any time, you don’t really own any of the games. But since they hold a monopoly, they are the only way to play some games legally. Best way I see to avoid them is to use GOG, or play some of the open source games. Though generally, the open source games understandably have very small scopes.
If we are being fair, they are still reasonably fair to users. Open source gaming is not a reality.
They don’t force you to use Steam, but still work on Proton as Open Source. They don’t lock down their hardware.
What I’m trying to say is, while Valve is not perfect, it’s much better than any big tech alternative.
Right now Valve is somewhat fair with its users, but since your games are tied to your steam account which could be deactivated at any time, you don’t really own any of the games. But since they hold a monopoly, they are the only way to play some games legally. Best way I see to avoid them is to use GOG, or play some of the open source games. Though generally, the open source games understandably have very small scopes.