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No. Piracy is why this is.

It factually like that before too, now it is just made clear during payment. That is a change for the better. Legally you have the same rights, you lost nothing. However, steam is not pretending anymore you have more rights then you actually do.

They’re literally just adding some extra text in the checkout flow to make it more clear to consumers. It’s just been a license for decades

Yeah, we used to have all kinds of software validation tools. Most common was the serial you typed in, or the questions that asked for example, the third word on page 5 of the manual.

My favourite though, were those paper wheels where you had to align two different symbols. Then you'd look through the cutout window to get the code. Felt like some sorta secret agent or safe cracker doing that!

If you lost any of those, you potentially lost access to use the software. My takeaway is, people just aren't comfortable with a sense of impermanence. I don't have any reason to think Steam will do anything upsetting in the foreseeable future, but that small possibility makes people anxious.