StartupTim

Hey there, been a follower of yours in Twitter for a bit! I'm working (on GamingVPN.com) while writing you. Thanks for the AMA!

Question: What are your thoughts on how people are so divided on the whole Steam vs Epic store bit?

I also think competition is good and healthy so... I'm obviously very pro-Epic right now.

I think this is one of the best takeaways from your response. Competition spurs innovation and benefits the consumer.

Thanks for the response!

No one is interested in having 5 versions of 'Steam' running.

I definitely see your point of view and I agree with what you're saying. The power behind competition is that consumers will ultimately decide what they like by choosing where to spend your money.

Maybe 1 large player will emerge at the top, however, when smaller offerings come along, they tend to nip at the larger entities market size, forcing the larger entity (Steam) to adapt to better suit consumers. If they fail to adapt then a smaller company, one that consumers appreciate more, will unseat them.

In the end, I think people forget to appreciate what competition does: Forces those on top to continually innovate and respect consumer purchasing power and thus the consumer themselves.

I built something that does exactly this when I was a kid with a soldering iron. I demo'd it when I would play guitar and it worked pretty well.

I never thought it might have some sort of real life use though!

Yeah the customer definitely benefits by having to use an incredibly buggy sub-par piece of software to launch the games they like.

Everything starts from somewhere.

If you're debating that competition is not valuable for consumers then you would be incorrect. Consumerism, and capitalism at large, benefits when diversity of product offerings exist and when entities compete for the purchasing power of consumers.

I'm the consumer, I buy where I benefit the most. The EGS doesn't give me any benefits

Correct, your purchasing habits demonstrate that competition benefits consumerism.

it pissed me off by forcing me (not convincing me) to use it to play, say, Borderlands 3

Nothing forced you into buying Borderlands 3. If you didn't agree with the structure behind your relationship with that game then you wouldn't have purchased it. If it did bother you to some extreme level then you would not purchase that game. Instead, you would purchase products/services from entities that you agreed with. That is the power that all consumers wield.