Could say the same thing about AT&T, Bell Labs, etc. There’s a lot of precedent here, but most saliently, how you become a monopoly is not really relevant. They absolutely are one. But I’m being already aggressively downvoted with no counter arguments so the Gaben fanboys are here. (Defending a deca-billionaire is hard work, after all.)
What’s your solution then to them being a monopoly? How would you meaningfully break them up? While they outperform the sales of Epic and Gog I’m not sure how they’re abusing their position or how they’re keeping others from entering?
> Could say the same thing about AT&T, Bell Labs, etc.
No, you cannot. AT&T/Bell Labs was a monopoly - they physically controlled distribution networks that made it so you had to use them.
Valve does not. There is nothing that prevents you from simply selling your game without Steam.
And even if there wasn't, claims that Valve is a monopoly are factually false - there are many other storefronts that exist, and many games are published on more than one storefront at once. And, Steam does not gate an OS or platform like Microsoft and iOS do.
> But I’m being already aggressively downvoted with no counter arguments
Every one of your arguments is being countered (such as the claim that "relevance is anticompetitive" which isn't even false, it's nonsensical). Including this one.
> Defending a deca-billionaire is hard work, after all.
...and there's the emotional manipulation. It's pretty clear you're just a propagandist who has a grudge against Steam (maybe you work for Epic?), given that you're going up and down the thread with emotional non-arguments that try to redefine words, pull at peoples' emotions (like the billionaire comment), or just flat-out lie.
You're being downvoted because you're pushing punishing a company for having a better product. They do not engage in anticompetitive practices, there is no enforced barrier to entry in the market nor do they gate entry like the companies you have listed. They are only a monopoly because they have the best product.