Comment by qwytw

That's not exactly how markets generally work ("free market" is more of a theoretical concept than something that has ever existed outside of commodity markets at least).

In a way it can be justified in the sense that developers would rather get 70% than not make a sale at all if their games were only available on less popular platforms. But effectively that's what allows Steam to charge charge as much. They certainly have a dominant position in the market due to very little competition.

It's like retail/supermarket chains in certain countries being able to extort better conditions from their suppliers because they have very little choice. Or e.g. real estate agents being able to charge disproportionally high fees due to how the market is structured.

Whether someone considers that fair or not is of course rather subjective...

> Steam doesn't have this issue at all.

IMHO it's a matter of degree but fundamentally the same thing. The barriers to switching to a different store are just much lower than not having an Apple/Google phone but they still exist.