This is a bad take in general, if your computer can’t handle running steam it probably can’t handle many games to begin with. It’s the least intrusive option presented so far in terms of DRM, and steam has done more for the Linux gaming market with Proton than any other company afaik. You have to launch steam to avoid games wanting to do things like denuvo or kernel level anti-cheat which is WAY worse, and those of us on Linux need steam running while we game for additional reasons. This complaint about not wanting to look at a storefront is just petty, especially when I’m pretty sure there are settings to open it directly to your library.
Then you wait until you get home or to an otherwise appropriate venue. No one wants to hear a tutorial they didn’t ask for about putting up drywall on their commute home or in the grocery store.