You say that with such certainty!
It could happen, you know. Love always finds a way. Opposites attract. Melchiz and bansama were born for each other. All of these statements are accepted bits of wisdom regarding love.
...And back to the topic:
What is the topic? Did this thread have a meaningful purpose at any point? No, it certainly did not. I hereby excuse all past and future off-topic chatter within this thread, as it has been, and will continue to be, much ado about nothing.

I've noticed trends in many discussions of DRM, and I'm not sure if these trends allow for us to reconcile our views on the matter.
These trends include:
-X is DRM, Y is not DRM (generally regarding the Steam platform, copy protection, and license keys, any of which may occupy the "X" or "Y" position)
-DRM is always bad/DRM is not always bad (the former judgment is held with extreme prejudice, and often clouds any rational discussion of the topic)
-DRM is useful/not useful (does DRM reduce piracy, or, do DRM-free games reduce piracy?)
I have yet to see any of the above conflicts properly resolved.

Wait, this crap is still going on? I thought that if I leave it go and not do "ad hominems" around here it will get buried. Apparently not...

Silly man. These threads exist for such arguments!

Some people just have nothing better to do.
Steam will never disappear in the sense that the service will be discontinued and access to customers games will be lost. Never. That's just how it is, debating that it could is just worthless speculation, barely attached to reality. Worst case scenario, the service goes downhill and is acquired by another service that's going uphill. I also don't think we'll see all that many tactical nuclear strikes directed at Valve HQ, so arguing that Steam is bad because access to your games could be lost in the event of a catastrophe is just plain dumb. Seriously, if a magnitude 9 earthquake shatters Valve and everything in it, you would primarily be experiencing irritation because you couldn't access the service?

If a company like Activision acquires Valve (unlikely, as Gabe does not wish to sell), do you honestly believe that things will not go to hell for Steam?

So where can I buy one of these magical crystal balls that can see into the future?

Read my fucking post.
Even if Steam is acquired by [random], the service will not simply be killed and the consumers left without access to their purchased games. And that seems to be the main argument of most zealous Steam-haters. That they might, sometime in the future, in the event of a completely improbable chain of events, temporarily lose access to their games. I
I don't care whether Steam itself goes to fuck or not. The service itself, and the customer base it has, is quite simply worth too much to throw away.
Shouldn't you be obessively hunting all the forums for questions to answer for rep points? Contribute to my posts in a proper way (like finding a valid counterargument), or fuck off.

Did I hit a nerve or something? Your stating your posts like they are fact. Hence my light hearted responce, it wasn't an attack on you just a bit of a joke around...
Granted steams appears to be in a great postion as a digital platform now but things change. I remember an internet browser called Netscape Navigator a while back, that basically dominated the browser scene when it was around. As big as that was back in the 90's its no longer about today.
Its possible if steam starts going downhill another company will aquire steam if nothing more then the large user base but it doesn't mean it a certainty. What if steams has a slow decline over many years? Its not free for them to maintain the download servers or the service, if the service eventually costs more to maintain then they pull in it will fall. No company or service is invincible no matter how well they are doing presently or how long they have been in business.

Alright, define DRM. Seriously. I want to know in clear, general terms, what constitutes DRM in your mind.

Exactly. Or someone (the current owners of theoretical future owners) could decide to "reinvent" the service and move everything to a new platform (like to the old MSN Music--Zune Marketplace switcheroo) shutting down authentication servers for the old service in the process.

That's a really poor analogy. In fact it isn't even an analogy. Even though Netscape is gone, the internet isn't.

I was more refering to the fact a company owned a very large portion of the web browsing business and has since disapeared.

And what relation does that bear to my post claiming that even if Steam itself disappears, it's current assets, in the form of number of users and their purchased games, won't?
Steam could be bought up by the NRA and be called Uncle Teddy's Assault Rifles and Digital Distribution Service for all I care, as long as my games are still accessible.

Cant tell if this was already posted.

It was merely added to help add weight to my post that steam may not be around forever. Then my second paragraph deals with your claim that the users and purchased games won't. Its no more speculative then your post, I'm just relaying the fact that nothing is for certain. Which you seem to believe it impossible for your games to be lost, which although unlikely now due to steams strong user base may happen in the future. Like I've said nothing is certain in the business world and your original post made it out as fact that losing the steam service is impossible, hence the crystal ball statement...