this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Monopoly isn't bad (or illegal) if it doesn't exploit and/or abuse it's market position, which Steam doesn't.
Monopolies are always bad. They give too much power to the people who do not deserve it. Even if the one in charge looks benevolent.
Tell me, what do you think would happen if Gabe died tomorrow?
Also it depends what's driving that attitude... if it's an ethos from Gabe then great but he won't be around forever... what happens when he dies/retires?
Many companies have started with great ethics that went out of the window when the founders moved on, and Steam is in a fantastic position to enshitify if it wanted to.
That's a lot or what-ifs. If a lot of companies enshittify, that doesn't mean all do. Especially when Valve is not publicly traded (sure, "for now"). It has a lot of credibility, especially compared to other launchers (EA, Ubi, Bethesda, Battle.net). And while there is GOG which is a great launcher aswell especially by selling games without DRM, it's one in a million.
By your logic, we shouldn't trust any company because they can all enshittify.
If you replaced "company" with "monopoly" in your last sentence, I agree.
Doesn't even have to be a monopoly, I have zero loyalty to any business beyond the product they give me. Trust is for people, not for some nebulous corporate entity who wants my money.
But it does abuse its market position. By setting very high developer/publisher fees and forcing everyone to pay them. Don't forget that from Steam perspective, developers and publisher are their consumers, not you. Their business is similar to supermarkets. Supermarkets don't sell stuff to you, they provide selling and logistics services to produce manufacturers.
But those fees are counteracted by large user base, which is large due to the fact the platform is great and provides it's users good features that aren't elsewhere. A s large user base means large buying power, which directly translates to higher sales and thus higher profits.
If a supermarket gives the customers a nice place to stay, and provides extra features others don't, the extra cost for having your store in there (in Steam terms higher commissions, although I personally think it's adequate, but I digress) is offset by having bigger profit overall.
That doesn't mean Steam doesn't abuse its power. Because they sure do.
How? By being a good company? Look at the Google Play Store lawsuit, and why were they sued, any why they lost. Steam is not abusing it's position. And if you think they do, gimme an example or two please.
Steam has several lawsuits and class actions over their head:
With a big platform, I would be surprised if there were none. Most of them were dismissed or Valve won. I haven't seen a big one that Valve lost.