Uhh the bold was me mocking the person I was quoting, it's supposed to appear histrionic.
My point was that having something exclusively on a particular launcher is not anti-consumer and is not anti-competitive. It's extremely common. Diablo 3 uses Battle.net, Fallout 76 uses whatever Bethesda call their thing, Sekiro uses Steam, Metro uses Epic and so on.
Narcos is only on Netflix. American Gods is only on Amazon.
The croissants I like are only at this one place around the corner from where I work.
It happens everywhere.
Just because "everyone else is doing it" doesn't stop this from being anti-consumer since there's no competition.
In order for competition to exist, the consumer has to make a meaningful choice and exclusives are the antithesis of that.
What launcher is better, Steam or Epic? With exclusives, that question doesn't matter anymore since Epic is FORCING you to use their launcher instead of ENTICING you to use it.
For example, imagine that when Avengers: Endgame comes out, one particular chain of theaters makes the movie exclusive to them and them alone. Now, if people want to see the movie, they are FORCED to use those theaters instead of the ones they want. In this case, the theaters are no longer competing for who has the better seats, the best screens, or the biggest food selection. They're instead competing for who has the most exclusives, and since they're no longer competing on features they can disregard them.
As for the "Origin, UPlay, Battle.net, etc..." defense? They make the games they're selling on those stores. If they want to use THEIR own stores to sell THEIR own games instead of using Steam, GOG, or whatever, they can do it (which is still anti-consumer, by the way).
This exclusivity deals made by Epic are done with the sole purpose of making Steam look worse. Period.
This doesn't benefit the consumer in any way.
Also, your croissant analogy is flawed since no one owns the rights to what a "croissant" is. Maybe it tastes different depending on the store, but at the end of the day you're still getting a croissant. There's no "Steam" version of Metro Exodus that people can buy that can replace the one on Epic. This is what we like to call a MONOPOLY., that thing people accuse Steam of being but aren't.