Valve, like every other company, exists to make money. If them making money and you being able to play your games are in opposition it doesn't take a market analyst to figure out what's going to happen. This has nothing to do with the attitude that Valve has towards its customers and is not an attack on or criticism of Valve, it's simply the nature of the beast.

If anyone hasn't noticed, most games besides the main valve games (actually a few of those are included in this) can simply be backed up with a no dvd crack. I've done this on multiple games, even l4d.

True but there shouldn't be any reason for doing so.
Karl

This sums up my feelings on that. If I have to use cracks just to use a game I bought then why did I even buy it to begin with?

Meh, basically all games these days have at least a disc check, so I crack all my games that I buy.

As a matter of convenience that's perfectly understandable. My particular issue comes from when one needs to use a crack to even get a game to work.

Yeah that is bloody annoying, fortunately I've not had problems quite like that but I know a few people who've had to use NoDVDs to bypass the disc check because the checker didn't detect their DVD drive.
I've had to use a crack for a more physical problem. My NWN play disc was used quite a lot since I enjoyed the game but I got one of the early production runs where they'd skimped on reenforcing the centre perimeter of the disc. After 6 months or so I had a series of small spidery cracks that had nearly reached the foil so I had no choice but to start using a NoCD. I found it rather appropriate that a crack forced me to use a crack.
That said, I'm also a lazy bastard & don't want to go hunting for discs each time I want to play any of the games I've got installed so I also crack everything I have.

Patch 1.67 removed the requirement to have the disc in the drive. So if you're patched to version 1.67 or later, you don't need the no CD crack anyway. ;)

Yeah I think that was the last patch I actually used. I still had to make a copy of the disc so I could re-install it, then again that was convenient, the 5 dscs for the game & both expansions on one DVD was much easier

Aye, good point on that.

If Valve ever goes under, I will play the games I bought from them any way I have to. I'm sure with the millions of users there are a couple who could take care of the situation with software, and really I paid the money to the correct party so there is no consumerism left for me to express - just enjoyment of what I paid for.

Valve? Going under?
GAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Shall we go through the list of major developers who seemed immune to all the world could throw at them, leaders in innovation and makers of kick arse games and who all died or were assimilated by EA? Hell the soul of EA would be first on the list
No company is immune, valve are strong now but things change.

Westwood Studios, RIP.

Origin Systems, RIP.