Arbitration court with one person is a win for the company. Arbitration court with a thousand people is a massive loss for the company. That’s why these arbitration clauses aren’t always bad. If anything, for small cases they’re good for the people because the bulk of the legal charges are paid by the companies that write these clauses.

A bunch of large companies went through a phase where they all went for arbitration clauses, and a bunch of them moved back quickly after they found out how much more expensive paying for ten thousand arbitration cases was compared to just one single class action lawsuit. Maintaining ten thousand legally binding, individually composed outcomes can haunt them for decades if they’re unlucky.

Steam has learned the same lesson here.