I have no idea what their motivation was, but the charity angle is a great way to differentiate themselves from Steam. I would guess they would not be so successful without it.
Linux is ubiquitous across many devices (you won’t even know you’re using it) and servers yet it’s all based on FOSS. There isn’t an alternative for many of those usage cases.
Sure there is. There's always Windows Server or Windows Embedded/IoT.
You're leaving out what's really the key problem with the new pricing, which is that it is per install. It's an unlikely but very possible scenario that a developer could lose money (inexpensive game with an abnormally high number of reinstalls).
The pricing incentivizes "live service" or ad-supported games that constantly extract revenue from users rather than "buy once" games.
January 2015. I would do my best to put paychecks away for a few months coupled with what I already had, and invest it all in Bitcoin in August/September when it was $200. Even if I just let it ride until November 2021 rather than playing the ups and downs I'm looking at a 340x return. If I emptied out my savings and 401k, even if I couldn't convince family members, I'd have tens of millions of dollars.
There's a campaign, just not a story mode. It's a conquest-style, like what Dune 2 pretended to have (but was obviously scripted). Like Dawn of War: Dark Crusade or Soul Storm.
I didn't say there were good alternatives, just that there were alternatives.