Comment by terribleperson

I think that if a independent marketplace hadn't become popular by the 2010s, individual publisher platforms would probably rule.

I do wish software was transferable, but I don't think publishers would have ever gone for anything like that. Remember, in the 2010s we had publishers trying to kill physical game resale with things like multiplayer passes. An attempt to make software transfer a part of Steam would have just prevented Steam from successfully attracting publishers, just like they have DRM because publishers wanted it.

I do not think we will, or even could have, see actual software ownership ever develop naturally. It will require government intervention.