[jorvi]

Valve has market power though, which is a key part of a monopoly.

If tomorrow Steam decided to charge 30% extra to developers with the stipulation that sticker price must equal that of outside Steam, developers wouldn't have much of a choice but to eat the cost, because PC gamers are extremely reluctant to leave their Steam library and features.

A good example of market power is Apple vs Spotify. When Apple launched Apple Music, they changed Music.app into Apple Music on every iDevice in the world, with a handy subscription pop-up the first time you launched it.

This was massively anti-competitive overreach despite Apple not technically being a monopolist. You can easily install Spotify, and Spotify was much bigger. Without making this move, Apple Music would have crashed and burned, but Apple basically forced themselves into the market, using their marketshare and user migration reluctance as a crowbar.

The fair competition thing to would have been to show a pop-up on first Apple Music app launch, asking "hey, would you like to try one of these streaming services?", and show Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and Deezer in a random order. Just like Microsoft and their browser pop-up.

Then again, aside from a decade of stagnation (2010-2020 Steam saw very few updates, until Valve started working on the Deck), Valve hasn't really abused their position. Gabe Newell famously said that piracy isn't a pricing problem, it's a service problem, and Valve is a private company, so as long as he is at the helm I assume Valve is going to continue delivering good service. After that.. who knows.

[TheDong]

The even more anti-competitive thing Apple does vs Spotify and all competitors is avoiding app store fees, while forcing all competitors to pay them.

To have the same profit, Spotify has to charge $13/mo when apple music charges $10/mo with all else being the same.

That's very obviously the App Store monopoly being used to give Apple Music a massive unfair advantage that is practically impossible to break through.

Steam does not have anything like that, if someone else decides to make "Epic Game Launcher" tomorrow for PC, that new company doesn't need to distribute it on the "Steam App Store" and pay valve 30% of all sales.

[Retric]

> To have the same profit, Spotify has to charge $13/mo when apple music charges $10/mo

Last I checked as long as an App Store is not handling subscriptions Apple doesn’t take a cut. Did that change?

[TheDong]

Yes, subscribing outside the app does avoid the cut. Which is why you can't subscribe to spotify in the iOS app, you have to open a browser: https://support.spotify.com/us/article/cant-subscribe-to-pre...

Until this year, Spotify couldn't even tell you in the iOS app that you could pay for premium: https://newsroom.spotify.com/2025-05-01/following-landmark-c...

This meant in apple music, the user could open the app and it would work including paid features.

In spotify, you could open the app and it would tell you "You can't subscribe here, sorry" and couldn't even link you to a webpage you could subscribe at.

I'm certain a non-zero number of users couldn't understand what to do with that apple-approved error and gave up.

Maybe there's a reason that apple lost in court for that one.

[Retric]

> subscribing outside the app does avoid the cut. > Maybe there’s a reason Apple lost in court for that one.

The App Store as a sales channel isn’t a monopoly. The App Store as an installation method is.

It’s an interesting separation, but Apple really didn’t want to make that clear to customers which is probably why they lost.

[galagawinkle489]

"Monopoly" is a distraction. The issue is abuse of market power. Having market power is fine. You can't punish people for being successful.

Steam doesn't abuse being successful to lock out competitors. You can sell products sold through Steam via other platforms too. You can sell outside of Steam and give your customers Steam keys for the game. You can install Steam on different platforms alongside other stores and programs.

Nothing Steam does makes it harder for consumers to buy games from Valve's competitors. That's what matters, not whether Steam is very successful.

[jorvi]

To be clear, I don't think Valve has abused their position at all. I was merely musing on how they could. Which would operate on a similar concept as Apple did: "my users will stay in my ecosystem almost regardless of what I do."

[Incipient]

>so as long as he[Gabe] is at the helm I assume Valve is going to continue delivering good service

THIS. Valve I trust to be a good entity for as long as Gabe leads it. As soon as he's gone, Valve will be taken over by some accountant CEO and will abuse their market position (functional monopoly).

I kinda hope Gabe pulls a Patagonia and leaves Steam to some impenetrable legal entity that runs it for the good of the users.