I'd imagine it's a way to sift normal users that might turn into power users, so they stay in Google's controlled environment. Or, since apparently Google can modify programs in the Play Store if they so desire, maybe it's a way to increase the chance the user will keep using approved backdoors/tojans/spywares. Either way, I can't recommend enough for people to use vanilla phones, and have some cheap, second hand one just for stuff you can't use without Google Play.
Can't give precise numbers, but at least that I can notice, despite greatly filtering what I check, there's enough stuff to make running out of stuff to check rather unlikely. Besides, as I started using RSS feeds a lot recently, mainly for federated platforms (not just Lemmy ones), and the reader I use can hide posts marked as read, it's being a struggle to lower the number of posts to read in comparison to the sum of posts automatically pulled during the set up of each link.
Is your drive where you install games automatically mounted by the system? In case something changed in your system, does it have the same path as Steam expects it to? And is the drive a separated storage? And though it may sound like a stupid question, I think it's important to ask also, are you sure it's on the storage you think it is?
If you want to gradually move away from closed and/or paid software, afaik, the only way is through unlocking the bootloader and uninstalling programs through there.
Alternatively, there is the nuclear option, to replace the whole system, and start from zero with a distro as close as possible from AOSP. Worth noting it also requires unlocking the bootloader.
About Heroic, it allows installing several versions of a few forks of Wine, Proton and Proton-GE included, and it's installed on a folder specific from Heroic, instead of installing on the whole system.
Alternatively, or perhaps even concurrently, you can have a Proton instance without having Steam installed. Dunno how it works on Lutris, but besides being able to install Proton manually, you should also be able to install a few different versions of it through Heroic too. Dunno other means for that but probably are.
Not ideal, but what I do is to load all musics onto VLC, open the list view (Ctrl L on Linux), let the list fully load, sort by song name and check what appears repeated or that I don't want for other reasons. It also helps if the songs are metadata-rich, such as the ones bought from Bandcamp and ITunes (not Apple Music), so it's easier to differentiate them (given this community, I have no clue how/where from yours are). And lastly, there's a little plugin I found a while back that helps a bunch, vlc-delete, which adds the option to delete the currently playing file, and that, at least in the Linux version, benefits from motor memory since it can be executed with a quick succession of 2 Alt shortcuts.
The Reddit-inspired instances like the Mbin and Lemmy-based ones may be of interest for you. The Lemmy ones, from what I can tell, always hide the follower list, and the Mbin ones allow the user to choose between showing and not showing. Also, both seem to be able to connect to Twitter-like instances, though UI for that part in the Mbin ones is pretty barebones and the Lemmy ones mix them up.
But what if you try to navigate through the archived pages? The lack of direct links is something that also happens in some Microsoft pages, but some times Internet Archive manages to archive such pages anyways.
Not familiar with LG's site so I don't have any links quickly available. But if it helps, and if you know the link or roughly where in the site the file was, maybe you could try checking Internet Archive, Archive Today, or, if the site has an Australian equivalent, the Australian Web Archive / Trove? Don't know other page-archiving alternatives, but if you do, I would also suggest checking on them.
I can conjecture some things, though I can't be 100% sure on either:
First, maybe it's fanatics/fanboys that don't like competition making their platform less relevant. Second, it's paid actors complaining. Third, it's robot accounts making posts. Fourth, as proposed in the OP, people are getting the wrong impression due to noisy and problematic bubbles. Fifth, people being scared of leaving their comfort zone. Sixth, a mix of either some or all the previous possibilities.
The more concerning part is the bootloader that keeps being made more and more cumbersome to unlock. Not as easy to install one's system of choice when you need to beg the device maker to allow access to the part of the system required for that. =/
I mean, slap a proper desktop system and plug some bluetooth devices like a controller or a keyboard and mouse, and you got a makeshift laptop / notebook / whatever-the-current-name-is.
Any service requires investment, though. What pays Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.?