This is specifically about ARM64 if you read the posting. The only other ARM hardware out there that runs Proton are these random Chinese brands that make emulation focused handhelds. That's not a segment of the user base that EA would care about.
Now, Valve is turning the entire ARM ecosystem on its end by building out an entire suite of tools to make an emulation layer that makes running Proton on ARM almost entirely possible for the full range of games that already run on Steam, which is huge. That means any ARM device can now run Steam, Proton, AND FEX without much in the way of a barrier. This brings Steam on mobile potentially into olac, MacOS back to the table...etc.
It's not about Linux users and SteamOS singularly, but the coming expansion into the ARM space.much larger than 4-8%.