One of the nicer things about Steam is that it’s not this rigid monopolistic enterprise that demands extortionary fees to host your software and constantly pulls content because some whiney dipshits started a digital book burning movement.
Steam is a fairly nice monopoly, but it still has many of the problems of a monopoly. For instance, if the steam matchmaking servers go down vast numbers of games immediately become unplayable. It’s not just squeezing people, it’s also about the centralization of power around a single point of failure.
I can get the software I find on Steam elsewhere. They aren’t exclusive to the platform. And while using Steam’s matchmaking service means you’re reliant on it staying functional, more often than not the failure is with the game no longer supporting updates to the Steam environment rather than Steam systems simply giving up.
That’s not a monopoly, nor is it a problem with Steam as a platform. At least, no more than any networking service has general problems with backwards compatibility and escalating security issues.
Steam is a fairly nice monopoly, but it still has many of the problems of a monopoly. For instance, if the steam matchmaking servers go down vast numbers of games immediately become unplayable. It’s not just squeezing people, it’s also about the centralization of power around a single point of failure.
I can get the software I find on Steam elsewhere. They aren’t exclusive to the platform. And while using Steam’s matchmaking service means you’re reliant on it staying functional, more often than not the failure is with the game no longer supporting updates to the Steam environment rather than Steam systems simply giving up.
That’s not a monopoly, nor is it a problem with Steam as a platform. At least, no more than any networking service has general problems with backwards compatibility and escalating security issues.