Not OC, duh.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 42 points 6 months ago (13 children)

I get that we shouldn't be happy about any type of Monopoly but Steam occupies the PC gaming space similar to how Linux dominates the server space.

You can't really complain that almost every server running Linux is a bad thing. Granted Steam is not open source, but you have to imagine how little effort it takes to not make a shitty marketplace/platform as a competitor.

The fact that such a low bar cannot be surpassed by multi billion dollar companies is all you really need to know, especially when GOG successfully exists.

  • source
  • hideshow 13 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago

    Steam is a closed source market place blob that takes 30% middle man tax. Valve however has understood FOSS, and the contributions they are making are immense.

    When a true FOSS project is dominating this means the people are in control of it. Not corpos nor is it a monopoly. People have voted by donating work for it to be the most successful thing in its applicable area. Dominating FOSS projects also suck up and integrate a lot of innovation greatly reducing duplicated effort.

    FreeBSD is alive and well, and it even benefits from Linux's DRM GPU drivers.

    Although the drm gpu drivers are mostly of a corporate effort, we are seeing an occasional interventions by the people "no, not like that" to keep the sometimes shoddy quality up.

    /

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 16 points 6 months ago (11 children)

    ow Linux dominates the server space.

    Linux is free. Free cannot be monopoly. Bad comparison here.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago (6 children)

    Steam is also free unless I'm missing something?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Steam is gratis to create an account, it is not free. All game purchases have a 30% tax, and you don't own the games you purchased.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Free can still be a monopoly. There is still a controlling group that decides the direction of linux and then entire ecosystem moves with that direction.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    None of that is a monopoly. Ecosystems have fragmented before because of decisions and Linux wouldn't be immune to it. Alternative forks of entire ecosystems happen.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    A monopoly isn't a guarantee to always be a monopoly. It's just at a point in time.

    Linux isn't a monopoly obviously because windows and other operating systems exist but in a world where there was only Linux it being free and open source wouldn't change its monopoly status.

  • source
  • parent