You really are a narrow-minded fellow, aren't you? I'm not eager to use something that has no benefit to me, deal with it, move on and let us argue our case to the developer to have a friggin'
option that doesn't affect the rest of you in the slightest. Some of you guys are worse than certain asian communist regimes of the 60s-70s with your forced indoctrination.
I know what you'll say, "nobody is forcing you to buy the game", but i have a better idea. I'll buy the game so that my say carries some weight as a legitimate customer and not a bystander, then i'll keep complaining about the lack of an alternative in the same way you constantly complain about lack of DX11 support. And guess what, their track record shows that whenever something persists for a long time they do eventually provide the option:
1) trim changes
2) various FM changes over the years
3) they had the ability to make mods incompatible with the TD patches but they didn't because a lot of people in the community use them
...and so on. So yes, we might still be forced to use this and have you basking in your snobbishness for the first release, but if there's not a long term contractual agreement i wouldn't be surprised to see the sequels coming in two different versions.
Maybe the modding community will come up with a workaround that disables it (it's not exactly hard to for someone who knows what he's doing, if you visit the pirate torrent trackers and run a small search you'll see that 90% of the steam games are pirated) without disabling the solidshield DRM.
Bottom line is, there is a minority but significant demand for a no-steam version and if it's not done through official means it will be done through unofficial ones down the line and you can't do much about it. I don't want to be a part of your group, buddy list or whatever, i just want to play the game, so forcing me to use Steam will still not get you what you expect to get from it because i won't use any of its features apart from the "join server" function. Get it?
Also, your Uplay argument is a red herring because
a) after the initial fiasco Ubi abandoned it and uses steam but
b) the intellectual property of CoD lies with 1c and not Ubi and
c) there is already another DRM scheme in place which, based on your "my way or the highway" approach, i really hope you will be forced to use on top of steam as it seems to be the case.
Despite it being based on a false premise, if you say that "in order not to get Uplay i'll force you to use Steam" i can just say that in order to have complex engine management and FM/DM improvements i'll force you not to have DX11 support and if you don't like it then haha, deal with it because this is a game about aircraft and mechanics are more important than visuals because i say so
This is exactly the attitude you guys have been displaying and it doesn't make Steam any friends to have a select few going around like a bunch of self-flogging zealots aggressively trying to convert everyone to their views. The more you rant about it, the more averse to it you make the rest of us.
Finally, the poll clearly shows thus far that the majority of people who want it to be optional either have it and like it or are neutrally predisposed to it. Maybe that's why you lot didn't like this poll, because it clearly nullifies your "let's lump everyone together for ease of discrediting" false argument that everyone who wants the option to opt out is an ill-informed hater with no personal experience. Well, think again because as of now 35% of the people who want it to be optional are steam fans and another 40% are neutral to it.