I hate steam and I rarely use its features outside its store and the friends list. Yet steam remains my primary digital distributor exactly because they got there first.
Later it has basically become impossible to avoid steam, if you want access to every game at least. X-com for instance required steam. Steam is also where all my friends have their profiles.
Even if steam didn't have a monopoly on certain games they still own the access to your library and won't allow you to take it with you.
If you ask me valve is right up there with the worst of them as far as exploiting their monopoly goes.
What has Valve done that's so bad in terms of "exploiting their monopology"? I honestly don't know what you're referring to. They do not even request store exclusivity from developers. If a developer or publisher decided to require Steam, that was their decision, not Valve's.
I guess you could point to Steam's DRM, but it's always had that, long before it was the de facto standard platform and before any monopoly existed.
Later it has basically become impossible to avoid steam, if you want access to every game at least. X-com for instance required steam. Steam is also where all my friends have their profiles.
Even if steam didn't have a monopoly on certain games they still own the access to your library and won't allow you to take it with you.
If you ask me valve is right up there with the worst of them as far as exploiting their monopoly goes.