This is not about SteamOS at all. GOG installers (and other DRM free methods) do work well with Wine - and with old Windows computers, no doubt about it. The question is about saving the older computers than, SteamOS itself requires a 64-bit processor with at least 4GB of RAM.
Modern Linux requirements are higher than older Linux distributions too, so there is that.
I was deeply troubled with the fact that Steam does not really offer any options to get older games running on very capable computers, and with them stopping Windows 7/8 support early this year, and Windows 10 support going away in a year, people will add their computers to the landfill soon.
However, being able to run old applications and games, whether from Archive.org or GOG.com could prevent it. Even an ESR version coming from Valve could really help mitigate this issue.
How do you think people could prevent/slow down this disaster from happening?
Steam's end of service on Windows 7 and 8 is based on CEF, just as it was for XP and Vista. I don't see Google/Chromium dropping Windows 10 support at Microsoft's EOL especially given how much market share Win10 still has -- it would be shooting themselves in the foot.
In the meantime, instead of ditching Steam, ditch Windows. Steam works amazing on Linux, and with Proton, the vast majority of Windows games Just Work(TM). You don't even need SteamOS (although it helps).
