Piracy will always be king! Another thing pirated games have an edge is not having to deal with mandatory official updates that break many past mods in games, it is extremely infuriating.
Steam did allow users to keep using it on Windows 7 and 8 for a bit longer, but now it's officially over.
The latest Steam version ended compatibility with these OSes, as of now.
A new Steam client has been released and will be automatically downloaded
store.steampowered.com
This version of the Steam client will no longer run on Windows 7 or Windows 8. Users on these OS versions will not automatically update to this new version of the Steam Client. See the Windows 7 and Windows 8 Support FAQ for additional details.