They could. That takes a lot more employees than they have and would mean that they were the place with all the shitty free games.

I don’t think it’s cynical. Their review model would make it very hard to make payment fair (we call always argue about whether Steam overcharges for its services) since it would be a pain in the butt to track income from advertisement.

But the advertisement business model makes for worse games. I think it makes great sense for Steam to ban them. And if games on Steam are better then that’s good for game developers that use their platform.

How would Steam get paid for their services if all your income was from ads?

Wasn’t this a compromise that allows speech? Babies can drink and breathe at the same time.