Steam is an excellent, monopolistic gaming platform that highlights what is wrong with modern technology

If you are a PC gamer, you probably use Steam. It is the largest gaming platform on PC with an estimated 75% market share in 2013. Since then, it's only grown, and I'm sure its market share hasn't changed all that much either. I'd argue that Steam is a monopoly (or at least an oligopoly), and I wouldn't be the first to do so. There's a stark lack of competition in the PC game distribution space, and Valve is basically the sole provider for most games released on PC.

While it's great that Steam has managed to still cater to consumers, it's more or less the same application it was a decade ago. Sure, it has some modern features and there are improvements that have been introduced over the years like a better messaging experience, a new interface, and some fun community aspects like the year in review, but it's still the same program it used to be. In contrast, applications have changed drastically since that time period.

How often do you hear people complaining about Netflix? And how often do you hear people complaining about Steam? The difference is staggering, and Steam's lack of change reveals a lot about what's wrong with modern technology.

Steam has remained constant

It's more or less the same as always

Just like other app stores for Android and iOS, Valve gets 30% of all sales on its platform through Steam. This figure hasn't changed for at least a decade and was quite a tempting deal for developers at least in the early 2010s, when competing platforms could take as much as 50%. This share can drop even further if games also sell well.

While some may argue that this is a high number, the truth is that it has also remained the same. It's not that the service has gotten worse, or that certain features have been made chargeable or even removed entirely; it's just the same Steam as always. That's what's attractive to consumers. And developers, but the fact is that the lack of innovation that drives Steam is part of its appeal, which in turn is a damning indictment on the entire technology world.

For most people this is not the case. want new features. Spotify, for example, has been the subject of several price increases in recent years, while also adding podcasts, AI features, mixes, and more. Some of the features are fun, but how many people would rather just use Spotify as a service in the same state it was in 2015? I think quite a few, since most people use it as an app for music.

Whatever you want to call it, it's bad

“Enshittification,” “crapification,” and platform decay are all terms that mean the same thing

The constant goal of a company is to make money. So far in the 2000s and 2010s, companies have often lured users with good deals and undeniably better value for money than the alternatives. Uber is a great example of a company that has done this: it entered the market and undercut the competition with a lower price, established itself in the ride-sharing business, and then raised prices once people got used to using the app, benefiting both shareholders and the company.

This is where Steam is different; Valve is still privately owned with no shareholders, and Valve's Gabe Newell apparently intends to keep it that way. Steam began as an anti-piracy project, with Newell arguing that the biggest deterrent to piracy was to offer a better service, and in his opinion that was Steam. Anecdotally, I can say that some DRM services in the past were less convenient than simply pirating the game itself, and games like Trackmania Sunrise with its StarForce DRM are an excellent example of this.

In this sense, Spotify also started out with the goal of capitalizing on the ongoing piracy epidemic and offering a more convenient, better solution for music streaming. Just like Steam, it worked and captured a huge audience. Now, Spotify has experienced several UI disasters, with the app resembling a strange hybrid of TikTok and music streaming while trying to be a one-stop shop for all things audio.

However, Steam is different here. Apart from a slight expansion to include more than just games (and these are not rubbed in your face), not much has changed in the service. It is Easier to get your games onto the platform as a developer than it used to be, but it's still the same Steam you used a decade ago. It still works the same way, with extra features you can ignore if you want, a similar interface to the one that's always worked, and the same fees and costs that have always existed.

Technology is no longer what it used to be

It's not just Spotify

Source: Pexels

Airbnb, Reddit, Amazon, Facebook, Google Search, and others are all examples of services that have seemingly shifted their focus from users to profit, knowing full well that users are tied to the platforms they use. Make no mistake: Steam's position in the market is highly abusable, and with an audience of millions with hundreds of games in their libraries, there's a lot Steam could do to try to make more money than the service already does. Steam has a monopoly position, it's just that the company is run by people who don't want to abuse it.

In some ways, Steam is a shining example of what technology could have been today. While there's no telling what the future of Steam holds when Gabe Newell retires or dies, the truth is that right now, it's clear to the people at the company that they care enough about making money without degrading the service at the expense of consumers. No one really talks about Steam or complains about it – it's just there and exists, more or less unchanged.

That's not to say I don't welcome competition, because Epic Games and co. can actually hold their own against Valve to a certain extent and offer a good library of games, but most gamers are still limited to what Valve offers. Epic Games' promise of free monthly games was a great initiative to get people to join, but it also meant that a lot of people would just claim the games and then go back to their Steam library to play the rest they had. That's a tough hurdle for any other company looking to enter the industry, and Valve has a lot of power.

Let's hope they don't change their minds.