When the touchpad is set to emulate a mouse scroll wheel while using a circular gesture, swiping clockwise is scroll down and swiping counter clockwise is scroll up. Of course, you can change this if you want:
Steam>Settings>Controller>Pair and Manage>Desktop Layout>Edit>Edit Layout>Trackpads>Left Trackpad Behaviour>[gear icon]>Invert Swipe Direction
Or just swap the "Clockwise Command" and the "Counter Clockwise Command" under Steam>Settings>Controller>Pair and Manage>Desktop Layout>Edit>Edit Layout>Trackpads>Left Trackpad Behaviour
But regardless of the fact that it can be changed, there must be some logic to why the Steam Deck touchpad behaves that way by default, right? Help me make sense of why some dev team at Valve decided that the default should be "clockwise=down" despite these other common scenarios in which "clockwise=up".
To me, clockwise = down would be the intuitive setting.
I'm not saying that's the "right" way for it to be, just a personal preference that either the devs share with me, or that the same devs believed most users would share.
As for why I find that intuitive, it's probably because I associate clockwise with "forward" and anti-clockwise with "backwards". In this specific scenario, "forward" would become "further down". I hope that makes some sense.