I don’t really see that middle finger, it’s what every PC seller should have, and most of them have already had them for a long time.
The fact that Valve apparently didn’t have certified repairers on release is more annoying to me than “raising the middle finger to the tech industry” that generally has this sort of thing in order. Some even offer an “on site” service. What is Steamdeck’s warranty procedure for that then? I know ifixit parts sold, but certainly in the EU Valve should have a replacement program for incompatible products.
The fact that Valve now seemingly finally has repairers is pretty cool, of course. I wonder how they did it, I don’t think the source article gives any indication if this is in-house or if they simply hired a well-known repair team that can now call themselves a Valve Repair Center, just as other brands sometimes do (especially in telephony).
In addition, the question for us Dutch will be how is this ‘local’ service, and therefore how fast the shipping, do you have to develop this as a consumer first (which unfortunately happens sometimes, especially internationally) enjoyable ), and of course how quickly the product can return.
All things that, as far as I can see, are not explained in the article, so for now I conclude that Valve has done this better than the competition, in my opinion not possible.