True, but Steam still controls Steam and they can change their terms whenever they want. But for now it's ok, at least. And their hardware is happily open: I've played a bunch of games I got on GOG, DRM-free, on my Steam Deck, for example.
Now if the RAM companies make it so you won't ever be able to afford your own hardware and every game company pushes cloud-only gaming... Well, we aren't there yet thankfully, but I fear it'll happen.
There's a lot that I love about it, but "choose which of these thousand settings permutations to get the game to look good without crashing" is a major chore.
One nice thing about Valve/Steam leading with hardware is that it gives console-esque performance targets. If you know your device is a bit better than a Steam Deck, you can probably start at the Steam Deck preset and adjust accordingly.