

In addition to aforementioned current pricing problems, the steam machine also comes with a small form factor (which is difficult to build to work well, might need specially made parts to fit it) and a preinstalled easy to use console-like OS for gaming, presumably with support.
If you don’t care for those, then sure, not the target market. I’m not planning on buying one, but if I ever want a small form factor PC, this is going to be a serious contender - even if I end up putting a different distro on it, there’s real value in the form factor and presumably having hardware that’ll work well on Linux.









I don’t know about youtubers, but as far as I know SteamOS wasn’t meant to be installed on non-deck devices, being distributed only as updates (not sure how those work) and recovery images for reinstalling on your deck, with no support or even instructions for installing it elsewhere.
It’s not about SteamOS being stupid, it’s about it not even being meant to be an option - it had less support than those “random” other distros.