I don't know about the rest of your claims ("shareware was the best way to discover software" is really a personal opinion), but this is just factually false.
Unlike iOS, where you cannot publish an app unless you pay the 30% cut, there is nothing that prevents you from developing and a Windows/MacOS/Linux game yourself. You can simply choose to not use Steam - but the benefits of developing and publishing with it (myriad SDKs, game servers, networking, social features, trading cards, anti-cheat, achievements, payment methods, reviews, discovery, forums, launchers, updates, CDN, and on and on and on...) are so overwhelming that it is simply worth it for the vast majority of gamedevs.
Fact: Steam is not rent-seeking - the value that they provide is tremendous, and you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition.
> you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition.
That's not how it works. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Plenty of businesses engage in rent seeking without having a captive (by most definitions) audience. All that's required is a very modest barrier (ex network effect, non-zero switching cost, etc) and a sufficiently large audience.
Rent seeking isn't even mutually exclusive with adding value. A business can do both simultaneously by virtue of being able to multitask. Most businesses offer more than a single product or service after all.
So first off, you start out by lying about my words, so we immediately know you're not operating in good faith.
What I said:
> Steam is not rent-seeking - the value that they provide is tremendous, and you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition.
That's a compound statement that you cut off to change the substance of. What you quoted:
> you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition.
And now that we've called out your lie, we can move on to the substance, which is also incorrect.
The definition of rent-seeking disagrees with everything that you've said:
"The attempt to profit by manipulating the economic or political environment, especially by the use of subsidies."
> Rent seeking isn't even mutually exclusive with adding value.
This is factually incorrect - both according to the dictionary definition of the phrase, and according to the way that it's used casually, which is extraction of value without creation of it.
I'm glad that this is happening in the open - when people have to actively lie to try to push a narrative about Steam, it really shows that they have no legitimate points - every thread where these lies are exposed just (justly) boosts Valve's reputation.
You are not assuming good faith, nor are you interpreting what I wrote in the most plausible manner.
I did not misrepresent you. You made two claims and I objected to the second. My objection stands regardless of the presence or absence of the claim about Steam providing value.
Notice that I took no position on whether or not Steam is rent seeking, instead merely disputing the reasoning that you expressed.
However even if I had taken a position to the contrary, I don't see how the definition you quoted would be at odds with that. I think it is fairly reasonably to see a dominant player with network effects as possessing sufficient economic power to meet the criteria you laid out. For that matter it's quite presumptuous on your part to assume that everyone else is on board with the particular definition that you selected there.
And it goes without saying that I disagree with your latter assertion of factual incorrectness. No dictionary disputes the ability of a business to multitask.
Actually interestingly enough if we use your definition then you can rent seek while simultaneously adding value to the same product just so long as you're also engaging in unreasonable market manipulation to increase your profit in the process. Amusingly my working definition had been somewhat more restrictive.
> I did not misrepresent you. You made two claims and I objected to the second.
I made a single claim with two parts:
1. the value that they provide is tremendous
2. you are not forced to use them
And then my conclusion was: these make them non-rent-seeking by definition.
You intentionally rewrote my argument to change its meaning, you know that you are, and you're continuing to lie about it.
I don't need to argue with you further - I've pointed out that you're fundamentally dishonest to other readers, and that's all I need to do from here on.
I don't know about the rest of your claims ("shareware was the best way to discover software" is really a personal opinion), but this is just factually false.
Unlike iOS, where you cannot publish an app unless you pay the 30% cut, there is nothing that prevents you from developing and a Windows/MacOS/Linux game yourself. You can simply choose to not use Steam - but the benefits of developing and publishing with it (myriad SDKs, game servers, networking, social features, trading cards, anti-cheat, achievements, payment methods, reviews, discovery, forums, launchers, updates, CDN, and on and on and on...) are so overwhelming that it is simply worth it for the vast majority of gamedevs.
Fact: Steam is not rent-seeking - the value that they provide is tremendous, and you are not forced to use them, which makes them non-rent-seeking by definition.