I think the biggest (and, in my opinion, obvious) problem with this argument is that it relies on time having no value in the eyes of the consumer (or, equivalently, that the seller believes this to be the case). A consumer 5 years after a game's release may only purchase said game at marginal cost, but the consumer 1 day after release is willing to pay a premium to receive the product. There really doesn't seem to be any logical support for the component of the conjecture that says "because the price may eventually settle to the marginal cost, it must immediately settle to the marginal cost". There is obviously a time-constant present

> Customers do adapt to this, and expect future discounts (sales) at release date already, and defer their purchase accordingly (despite valueing it higher!).

> But in reality, customers are not 100% rational

Or they are, and assign higher value to having the product now, rather than in the future.

I can easily see that apply in the case of pharma, where paying $$$ now can be preferable even over getting the product for free a month from now, when you’re dead.

But this conjecture predicts that Steam prices will drop immediately to their final low price. So Steam is actually also a counterexample.

These aren’t monopolists, unless you define the market as “that single game” which frankly is a bit ridiculous.

> Consider e.g. Steam (digital video games): Prices are discounted over time because of "greed" (=> desire to sell the same product to customers that value it less than the first wave).

Steam doesn't have actual monopoly. Their position is caused wholly by competition consistently shooting themselves in the foot by either offering inferior product or just annoy the customers

For example let's take EGS:

"We will take lower cut, buy from us!"

"Ok, so that means game will be cheaper right ?"

"Of course not! Just devs get that. Also we lied in marketing and compared our pre-transaction-fees cut to Steam's post transaction fees cut. Also we didn't mention Steam lowers their cut when games sell well, so the difference is far smaller in reality"

"Sigh, I guess I might try it for that reason, how does your service looks like"

"Well it has 1% of the features Steam has and about 20% of the features you actually use in Steam are here"

"...why the hell I'd buy at you?"

"Coz we paid devs of games you like to release exclusively at our platform?"

"How about fuck you I'd just get it on Steam".

About only competitor that tried was GOG but their "no DRMed games at all" motto meant that they just don't have games people wanted.

So, Steam enforces DRM while GOG doesn't? That's an improvement!

Actually no, Steam DRM is entirely opt in and devs don't need to use it at all.