Happy to pay! Just not on Steam. There's a whole world of gaming out there beyond Steam, and it's best for all of us if we avoid Steam as much as possible.
While I agree with you in principle, that's an incredibly unrealistic standard for both consumers and especially developers. Steam is the best place to go to make money for your games, thus it is the best place to go to find good games (not to mention heaps of bad ones, but that's par for the course). Plus, valve is hardly the worst company out there worth taking a stand against.