Gamepass kinda is all positive sides of Humble bundle without negative sides (tanking value on Steam, not being able to sell game later) and as bonus you may get millions rather than tens or hundreds of thousands
Many of you might have "Spelldifter" on Steam, under it's previous name "Labyrinth". I think it was bundled.
of course, steam version wasn't updated in long time. But some of it at least is very similar still
Techically it used keys, but just that Humble activated them on your behalf. Which kinda ruins their point of "someone who has access to keys can steal those", which it does not prevent because of that...
Valve sued for removing keyless activation in efforts to kill Humble Bundle.
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.298754/gov.uscourts.wawd.298754.1.0_1.pdf
If they didn't add standard to steam, people would be complaining that control keys were only for epic (where standard always existed), since with prices humble are paying, publishers surely want that extra dlc money whenever they can.
If they patch microtansactions to borderlands 1, BL3 is surely going to have tons. They could for example lock raid bosses behind mtxn currency. (Bl 2 had farm-able Eridum to lock those) .
Maybe they'll just keep to consmetics like with BL2 tho.