Honestly, I'm amazed by the hatedom for Starfield. It's ... a Bethesda game (and it's actually better at being a Bethesda game than Fo4). I'm not sure what people seem to have expected?
I know it is, developers can block downloads unless the user is signed into a Steam account that owns the game. But as an end-user that's distinction without difference.
That's even worse though. Plenty of games (e.g. Stellaris and RimWorld) are also available on platforms like GOG or, ugh, Epic. But if you want to use mods and you bought the game on any platform other than Steam it's fuck you.
It's probably still going to take some projects with it. If you've sunk hundreds or even thousands of manhours into a project you can't just... do it again, or at least not always. Especially not if you've invested money as well as time, which is probably the case for most indie projects that aren't literal one-person shows.