this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
1547 points (98.1% liked)
Buy European
2608 readers
4063 users here now
Overview:
The community to discuss buying European goods and services.
Benefits of buying local:
Local investment, job creation, innovation, increased competition, more redundancy.
Related Communities:
Buy Local:
Buying and Selling:
[email protected]
Boycott:
[email protected]
Banner credits: BYTEAlliance
founded 1 month ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yea, the same way youtube isn't a monopoly... Except for all practical purposes it is.
Except it's not, because you can go to multiple other sources
More than YouTube, even, and even YouTube isn't a full monopoly, though it's a lot closer than Steam is
Monopolies aren't just "big companies' you know
You're right - monopolies aren't just big companies. But a lack of monopoly is also not simply having access to alternatives. You can have all kinds of alternative services - that notion alone does not disprove the claim that Steam is a monopoly.
Monopoly literally means that single entity has exclusive right to the market. Like for example in Finland VR (valtion rautatie, goverments railways) or Alko (only shop that can legally sell spirits for consumers).
There is also term called natural monopoly where getting in to the marked is impossible. Like railways in USA.
Steam is neither.
There is GoG, Epic, itch.io, Microsoft store and like ten smaller stores that are straight competitors for Steam.
Being market leader does not mean they have monopoly and if Steam somehow blunders the goodwill they have with gamers and devs there will be alternatives.