What profits did Valve say that to exactly? They were shipping a device that didn’t have an existing OS that worked for it. I know companies have been shipping handheld PCs since the 90s but they never took off because the experience of Windows on a mobile device sucks, full stop.
I’m very happy they did this and it will help lots of things, but it’s about as altruistic as Apple making WebKit open source. A massive boon to the community that did help everyone, but the goal wasn’t altruism. It was to create a software solution where one didn’t exist to improve a for-profit device.
Plus, not having to pay Microsoft for OEM Windows licenses helps too.