I wonder why these type of articles never pop up about PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo. The level of control they fear from Valve is accomplished on consoles. The only way it would happen on PC is if either Windows or MacOS not only became the dominant operating system, but also having the software distribution dominated or entirely monopolized on those platforms through their own Microsoft or Apple store. I'd bet Microsoft's wet dream would be Windows 10 S becoming the standard Windows people want. Apple already has the hardware controlled at their end as well.
Steam was crap for some years before . At least on PC you can do direct sale, or choose whatever dozen or so stores you can sell through. Origin, B.net/Blizzard launcher, GOG Galaxy, UPlay, Bethesda launcher, whatever is doing well in China from probably something from Perfect World, Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, TaoBao; these services at least have an opportunity to compete and build their own userbase. I think the control that Steam has is overrated. They have no control over the direction of Windows or MacOS, they have a small stake in the development of Linux of which they're a relatively puny company in the pool of companies who have a stake in Linux. If the decline in Windows license sales continued hard and Microsoft decided to more aggressively monetize Windows post-first license sale, Valve has little they can do to deal with this other than just recommend people use older versions of Windows. If you go back 20 years ago before there was a popular store front, if you weren't approved for release on PlayStation or Nintendo, you were pretty screwed. Small section at GameStop because CD-keys made resale a no. Focus on SEO and hope Google brings people to your game. Stardock didn't want to be retailer so they sold Impulse and back then I thought Impulse was a legitimate alternative to Steam. GameStop for whatever reason rather than trying to build up a digital store over time with Impulse just doubled down on physical media.
Valve tries to do as little as possible. They tried to avoid having to deal with refunds. It eventually happened. I don't commend them for implementing refunds, its something I just view as something that should have been expected to be provided. One question I have is what is it about Origin and UPlay that they have such a limited amount of games that aren't EA or Ubisoft games? Is it that the process for developers to get their games on the platform is so arduous that it is not worth the effort? Whatever it is, I'll blame those companies and not Valve or the consumers. If the process of getting games on other services is simple, then why not put them on those services as well? The only real negatives to those stores are the lack of games, the lack of features that Steam does have; to me I particularly care about having support for numerous operating systems Linux and MacOS.
Too much of this article is complaining about Steam users. People care about the games. Steam is a tool. It gets used because you can consistently find the games if wanted and the community if wanted. If something came along as good of a service came along, it can compete over a long term, not overnight. EA games do fine on Origin. Blizzard games do fine on b.net/Blizzard launcher. Whatever change to distribution of PC games will change only if alternatives prove competitive over a long term or noticeably better to foster faster growth.
Whatever terrible things Valve does to Workshop developers is unknown to the vast majority buying and playing games and they have no reason to know any of that. Just as they have no particular reason to know about what cut Valve gets on transactions. Consumers will go to what's established and easy to use. Developers and journalist can continue to vocalize about Steam to target Valve for some change but they're talking to people that aren't even close to listening and will not because they come to Steam to find entertainment and they're finding entertainment.
Origin is close to being a capable competitor but it lacks games for whatever reason and in less points of importance it lacks bonus things like Workshop and Linux. Things don't get better overnight. It's the same with Youtube recently. Youtube is unstable and too powerful. Twitch allows direct uploads. DailyMotion and Vimeo are trucking along. Why not place content on as many platforms as possible and long term maybe one of them prove popular rather than betting it all on one platform and then blame users for not building up other platforms when the users only care about acquiring entertainment?