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> Sure, but how much are they realistically going to pay for it?

Nothing? Valve makes it money selling the games on the store. SteamOS is presumably free to install on your own hardware once it has a general release.

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> Nothing? Valve makes it money selling the games on the store.

Right, so my question is how does better compatibility with (non-game) Windows apps help them make more money?

A better Linux desktop experience means it's more viable as a daily driver, which makes it more likely to be used for gaming instead of Windows.

Valve wants independence from Microsoft Windows, a better Linux desktop is part of that.

It's also possible they'd strike a deal and sell the software via Steam platform. I don't see why would developers object that, after all it would be a new market for then previously out of reach. Doubt Microsoft would agree, but smaller devs for sure.

The big thing is that the current SteamOS image is incomplete and missing a lot of key features that the Steam products have, since it's optimized for that. That's been the one big sticking point for it as of now.

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