The fact that 80% of the planet can’t buy it directly from valve means that there will always be a scalping market.

I think it’s moronic to rely on scalping. This is a large market share that any competitor worth their money should be ready to jump on. It doesn’t take an MBA to slap together PC components, install SteamOS or Bazzite and sell an unofficial knock-off “console”. The global memory shortage being maybe the only serious obstacle.

Absolutely not. Scalpers thrive on scarcity (artificial or otherwise) which is why they make sure to hoard everything they can so that no one else can buy it from official channels. They bring no convenience, they are just parasites who make everything worse.