I mean, they develop and maintain Proton yet they don’t even prohibit you from using it on other things. If literally any company did that, their shareholders would riot…
…so I don’t think it technically qualifies as a monopoly, but they probably could have had a legal monopoly using an exclusivity patent on the tech (although they technically can’t patent the whole thing because it’s based on Wine, but they could have done this in a way that they could have).
That is a fair point. I’m also not trying to discredit Steam, I don’t really think there’s any kind of a problem as of now (well, apart from the fact that it could go downhill very fast once Steam changes hands), and the services they provide are reasonable and for me worth the 30% cut, especially their Proton work.
I mean, they develop and maintain Proton yet they don’t even prohibit you from using it on other things. If literally any company did that, their shareholders would riot…
…so I don’t think it technically qualifies as a monopoly, but they probably could have had a legal monopoly using an exclusivity patent on the tech (although they technically can’t patent the whole thing because it’s based on Wine, but they could have done this in a way that they could have).
If Valve were a publicly traded company, their shareholders would have rioted over it
That is a fair point. I’m also not trying to discredit Steam, I don’t really think there’s any kind of a problem as of now (well, apart from the fact that it could go downhill very fast once Steam changes hands), and the services they provide are reasonable and for me worth the 30% cut, especially their Proton work.