They do have competitors, they competitors just aren’t very popular. There is the colloquial definition of monopoly, and a different legal bar for being declared a monopolist under US law.
To be declared a monopolist requires that a company already has destroyed or is actively seeking to destroy competitors through anti competitive behavior. Even if people mix terms, the general idea is that they’re not doing anything unreasonable and anti-competitive to gain their position in the market. They have competitors, they’re just not popular, and steam has not done anything to make them unpopular.
The real danger is that if steam decided to suddenly start being externally anti consumer, like many of it’s competitors already are, it would be difficult for people to migrate away due to a lack of interoperability between services. Users can’t transfer licenses to play games between services, nor can they easily interact with social features on other platforms. But that’s not really steam’s fault, that’s how all the competitors (for the most part) work as well.
There is the colloquial definition of monopoly, and a different legal bar for being declared a monopolist under US law.
The US legal bar for being a monopoly has been a joke since Reagan. But even aside from that, legality is not an interesting concept in discussions like these. Slavery was legal. The real question here is whether this situation has the potential to cause serious harm to society.
The real danger is that if steam decided to suddenly start being externally anti consumer, like many of it’s competitors already are, it would be difficult for people to migrate away due to a lack of interoperability between services. Users can’t transfer licenses to play games between services, nor can they easily interact with social features on other platforms.
Exactly, this is the problem. This is anticompetitive behavior.
But that’s not really steam’s fault, that’s how all the competitors (for the most part) work as well.
Yes it is, this is a deliberate choice they made. No one held a gun to their head. And it is precisely this kind of stuff that antitrust laws were supposed to protect us from. And you can see that in countries which do still have reasonable antitrust laws, Steam is being sued for precisely these practices.
Exactly, this is the problem. This is anticompetitive behavior.
It’s not anti competitive if it is litterlay also what all the competitors are doing, and have been doing since the very dawn of digital markets for software. It also dubious if they could legally even set up such interoperability even if they wanted to, as it could potentially violate parts of the DMCA.
They’re not doing anything to destroy their competitors, they’re not a monopolist, and the repeated failures of court cases against them all over the world shows that. There are a few on going cases against them, but, there are far far more cases that have already finished that failed to show any monopoly seeking behavior.
![Steam competitors be like. [Extended?]](https://thelemmy.club/pictrs/image/8d2d46eb-234c-41bd-b7c1-fb9c4c9f2508.webp){kind=link}
They do have competitors, they competitors just aren’t very popular. There is the colloquial definition of monopoly, and a different legal bar for being declared a monopolist under US law.
To be declared a monopolist requires that a company already has destroyed or is actively seeking to destroy competitors through anti competitive behavior. Even if people mix terms, the general idea is that they’re not doing anything unreasonable and anti-competitive to gain their position in the market. They have competitors, they’re just not popular, and steam has not done anything to make them unpopular.
The real danger is that if steam decided to suddenly start being externally anti consumer, like many of it’s competitors already are, it would be difficult for people to migrate away due to a lack of interoperability between services. Users can’t transfer licenses to play games between services, nor can they easily interact with social features on other platforms. But that’s not really steam’s fault, that’s how all the competitors (for the most part) work as well.
The US legal bar for being a monopoly has been a joke since Reagan. But even aside from that, legality is not an interesting concept in discussions like these. Slavery was legal. The real question here is whether this situation has the potential to cause serious harm to society.
Exactly, this is the problem. This is anticompetitive behavior.
Yes it is, this is a deliberate choice they made. No one held a gun to their head. And it is precisely this kind of stuff that antitrust laws were supposed to protect us from. And you can see that in countries which do still have reasonable antitrust laws, Steam is being sued for precisely these practices.
It’s not anti competitive if it is litterlay also what all the competitors are doing, and have been doing since the very dawn of digital markets for software. It also dubious if they could legally even set up such interoperability even if they wanted to, as it could potentially violate parts of the DMCA.
They’re not doing anything to destroy their competitors, they’re not a monopolist, and the repeated failures of court cases against them all over the world shows that. There are a few on going cases against them, but, there are far far more cases that have already finished that failed to show any monopoly seeking behavior.