People hated steam when it launched but you needed it to play CS 1.6. It made installing mods easier. Then HL2 released, orange box, and they were able to get a critical mass as they provided platforms support for other games. Steam got better. It’s still not great but they have so much market share that basically any PC gamer already has it. Epic wants some of that money. The problem is nobody wants to install another store and they aren’t doing anything to improve gamer’s experience other than giving away games and having some exclusives. They’ll never hit the critical mass needed that way.

Steam has a lot of issues but there are too just lots of areas where better products don't win out over inferior products, that's just not how the world works for lots of reasons.

> If you see a product category where users are legitimately unhappy; then enter it, build something actually good, you'll be the biggest and richest in no-time.

In what role-playing game?

That's what's happening to Windows as we speak.

Steam was first to market and it took forever for competitors to form.

It being a good service is secondary.