Except in this case, aren't they the monolithic "publisher"? Not technically publishers but they are now holding the gates to all the users who are not willing to register / pay on a separate site or run down to a store. Sort of similar to the apple app store.
Compared to self-published works, sure. But compare them instead to the old standard, the likes of EA, Ubisoft, and Activision, with their buyouts, exclusive contracts, editorial control, and very small volume of profits returned to developers. This is a big step forward, and will help break ground for others to follow in the future and take the ideals even further.
(Of course, the old publishers also made large initial investments in games/game studios, but there's good evidence that such investments are no longer necessary for quality games to be produced, and when they come with so many strings attached it's easy to see how the quality can suffer)
