Wtf is with people deciding a monopoly is good because the company hasn’t started enshittifying it yet. It will happen. It’s what monopolies do. Healthy competition is an important part of preventing enshittification.
Steam has no competitors because nobody is competing with them, not because they are forcing nobody to compete with them.
Steam isn’t abusing their dominant position to prevent competition. Other companies could make their own storefront and compete with steam. Nobody does in a way that’s actually comparable to steam.
Steam has a monopoly, but it’s not because steam is actively keeping it that way.
That wasn’t always the case, and I don’t know if it’s currently the case. At least at one point, they would intentionally lose money by dropping their prices below profitability just to get mom and pop shops to shut down, and then raise prices back up to profitability. Or they’d force suppliers to cut costs only for them to the point where the supplier wasn’t making a profit, but by then they had stopped selling to competitors.
There’s a lot more evidence for Walmart committing anti-trust than Valve.
Nobody can because of Steam’s monopoly. You can try to create your own store but you won’t have nearly the same selection of games. Monopolies are bad. Even when they’re companies you like. To be clear, I’m not saying Steam should be broken up, I’m not saying they should lose games to other stores. I’m saying they’re a monopoly, and that is bad because it enables Steam to stagnate or even get worse.
It’s also pretty inarguable imo that Steam has been getting worse. Steam sales used to be events. You’d get multiple huge discounts on AAA games. Now you’re lucky to get 40% off a 6 year old game. And don’t get me started on the UI, which, while fine, hasn’t changed meaningfully in like a decade. There simply is no incentive for Steam to be better. So they’re not. We should consider ourselves lucky that they’re still as good as they are, because they won’t be forever.
Isn’t that only about the 30% fee?
Steam provides a lot of value for that 30% fee, more than Apple does.
Wtf is with people deciding a monopoly is good because the company hasn’t started enshittifying it yet. It will happen. It’s what monopolies do. Healthy competition is an important part of preventing enshittification.
Steam has no competitors because nobody is competing with them, not because they are forcing nobody to compete with them.
Steam isn’t abusing their dominant position to prevent competition. Other companies could make their own storefront and compete with steam. Nobody does in a way that’s actually comparable to steam.
Steam has a monopoly, but it’s not because steam is actively keeping it that way.
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That wasn’t always the case, and I don’t know if it’s currently the case. At least at one point, they would intentionally lose money by dropping their prices below profitability just to get mom and pop shops to shut down, and then raise prices back up to profitability. Or they’d force suppliers to cut costs only for them to the point where the supplier wasn’t making a profit, but by then they had stopped selling to competitors.
There’s a lot more evidence for Walmart committing anti-trust than Valve.
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I’m failing to see where the anti-competitiveness comes in.
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What does this have to do with Valve?
Nobody can because of Steam’s monopoly. You can try to create your own store but you won’t have nearly the same selection of games. Monopolies are bad. Even when they’re companies you like. To be clear, I’m not saying Steam should be broken up, I’m not saying they should lose games to other stores. I’m saying they’re a monopoly, and that is bad because it enables Steam to stagnate or even get worse.
It’s also pretty inarguable imo that Steam has been getting worse. Steam sales used to be events. You’d get multiple huge discounts on AAA games. Now you’re lucky to get 40% off a 6 year old game. And don’t get me started on the UI, which, while fine, hasn’t changed meaningfully in like a decade. There simply is no incentive for Steam to be better. So they’re not. We should consider ourselves lucky that they’re still as good as they are, because they won’t be forever.
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Doubt it. Stay mad though, this shit is hilarious.
Gonna go buy a few dozen steam games to help pad Gabe’s wallet for making such a great platform.
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The price fixing clauses are about steam keys being sold off-platform
Ah, gotcha. Thanks.