Weird though, how this "general consensus" hasn't amounted to anything.
Again, you're assuming that a dislike of something has to lead to a reaction against it. Apathy, not activism, is default position for most.
And no, your example shouldn't give a fairly broad spectrum, it should bring the narrow spectrum of the people feeling inclined to even reply.
Yet it would provide a far broader spectrum than yours. If you have a better suggestion, I would love to hear it.
Why do you think you don't see people posting anything about their positive experiences with Steam Support, or any other support team for that matter, except the odd one who somehow bewildered himself to into a bashthread? Spoiler: It's the same reason you see tons of threads here or on sigames about people complaining about injuries and bugs, and very rarely see a thread called "I haven't encountered any bugs and my training regime is proving really successful".
Except people provide positive responses all the time? Let's look at the front page of /R/ games for example.
View attachment 326926
Theres:
. A thread commending Blizzard for their vision and understanding of the WoW market.
. A thread praising Apple for stepping in over the FtP games furor.
. 2 trailers
. A news announcement
. Praise for an emu project
. A civil criticism of DA:I's party faults, which also acknowledges all the good things it's done.
. A funny video
. A thread talking about the new SSB, again full of praise for Nintendo, even in basic things people would expect like making it work fluidly and the online experience.
. A dev diary
Is it all rage and fury, with little appreciation for the work and talent that goes into things? No.
My exact words: "Steam Support has always been helpful when I've contacted them" and "It's not nearly as bad as some will have it to be". Very far from "their support is good", which you argued I claimed.
And that's what we're discussing. You stance is that it's not that bad and I'm asserting that it's among the worst in the industry.
A pattern derived from anecdotes is still just a pattern of said anecdotes. Doesn't prove anything.
Prove? No, of course not. Suggest? Yes. More importantly, it's considerably more than your single piece of evidence and a solitary E-Petition.
Did you ever stop to wonder why you haven't heard of it?
Because E-Petitions have proven to be a largely ineffective means of change, the kind of half assed do-goodery that's likely to appear on a Facebook page? Being ignorant of an issue doesn't make that issue any less important, does it?
These are extreme cases. For every one of those countries that stood up, there are 10 more that will continue to go on in utter apathy. It also doesn't change the fact that your assertion is moronic: things being bad doesn't mean that people take action against them.
Not "when they see something they don't like". That statement could describe anything and is far too vague. We're talking about a specific here, that is very easy to identify, is based on online activity to begin with, and already brings people together (through the Steam community). I'm also not assuming it implies contendedness, I'm merely stating it implies not enough discontendedness to actively battle it. As for reasonable alternatives to Steam, I don't see the relevance due to the fact that if it were so bad, one could work towards improving it.It's like when the stereotypical americans of South Park say "if you don't like it, you can get out", when the whole point is that if there's **** on your doorstep, you try to clean it up - you don't start looking for a new house.
Again, you assume that people disliking Steam support will lead to any action and thus the majority must not be that discontent.
The reason why the absence of an alternative is relevant is because you base your argument on the supposed lack of efforts to change things. In most cases like this, people choose to vote with their wallets and leave, thus encouraging the company to make changes. With Steam, that just isn't possible because it's their way or nothing. You can argue that people should be making an effort to change things, but why would they when they see that previous complaints have been ignored? The crucial thing you seem to be missing here is that it's possible for the support to be an enormous pile of **** but for it to have such limited relevance that people aren't going to go out of their way and invest serious effort into changing things.
At the end of the day, you don't have to look much further than this thread. Steam support took days to get back to this guy and will apparently considerably more time to get his account back to him.