I would not spent a single cent for such an ability. If most people would follow that stance, I assure you, it is gone within a month.
I doubt that, as most people will gladly pay up (who can disagree with spam prevention, right?!). And the few of us not playing along will barely be heard since we can't even discuss it on the Steam forum..
There is of course a reason to why these restrictions exist in the first place. Frauds, fake accounts etc...
So give us a $0.01 account verification button and all shall be well...
So to those that say it has absolutely nothing to do with preventing some wide spread abuse that was happening, I disagree and do believe it was at least part of their reasoning for the change.
Now that the anger has made way for a more general disappointment in humanity, let me rephrase myself:
Although this change of course has it's roots in spam prevention, the way Valve decided to implement it (demanding a non refundable 5 dollar payment) makes this actually two changes.
The first being adding bank verification to prevent spamming and the second being demanding every user to give 'm money in order to use the Steam platform.
While it might be argued that both are rightful decisions for Valve to make* it's the fact they implemented both whilst only mentioning spam prevention that upsets me.
Because of this any discussion about these changes will be coloured and your (and mosts for that matter) stance in this is exactly what I mean. "As it solved the spam issues we're going to be cool with it"
* I actually doubt this but as my transaction was with Paradox I can legally only address myself to them which will probably lead to voiding our agreement (for not providing the satisfaction I could have expected when buying the game) and a refund (which I don't want to do) after which they can demand their damages (the refund) to be paid by Valve (which they won't do). So I guess I'm stuck...
Ps: Funnily enough, after playing over 200 hours of CS, Steam did actually ask me to write a review yesterday (to be posted on Steam(?!). Although on the one hand I'm still considered a Chinese spamming bot I'm actually a much appreciated gamer on the other. As I might have gone a tiny little bit of track in my review I'm not assuming to see it being accepted...
Pps: I'd like to add that as personalised direct marketing (like what Valve does when spamming(!) me with "great deals" based on their profound knowledge of my gaming habits) has a real world value, it could be argued that I already paid 'm.
Ppps: On a completely irrelevant side note; don't they make enough already? (Estimated revenue over 2010 was already close to a billion and even back then they were projecting a 200% year-over-year growth..)