DRM was not popular on PC before Steam became popular. It used to be possible to buy physical copies of games without DRM. On consoles that is still the case.

Apparently you don’t remember SafeDisc and all the bullshit for PC games in the 90s which required physical discs. All kids of games had DRM that was not the same as always online DRM, but was actually even more annoying than what we currently have.

I don’t know, but you can’t sell your game anymore if you get bored of it, so it’s still a loss. Games are overpriced most of the time only to have a -75% off sale a few times a year.

Games are still mostly $60 or less like they have been for decades, and 75% is cheaper than my friends bought used games a couple decades ago. The sales let me buy so many more games than I did before steam at an overall lower cost.

Hell, I can still games that are a couple decades old while games in the late 90s/early 2000s were hard to get working after a few years because of DRM.

Everything else is a tradeoff, but your memory is failing if you think PC gaming was a better and cheaper experience before steam.