Again, I don’t disagree with you regarding Steam sometimes getting way too gassed up by gamers, and not having any incentive to change because of it. That’s because the bar is so fucking low for the industry as a whole.

But I wouldn’t call it “rent seeking”. They make deals with publishers to have games come to PC instead of being locked into console exclusives, they are making consumer friendly hardware, they are pushing the Linux gaming sphere, and they have actual customer service for their storefront. All of this should be standard in the gaming sphere, but because it isn’t, Valve and Gabe are seen as gods.

steam community features and workshop are both significant value propositions for some games (rimworld, oxygen not included) and the remote LAN feature is cool