>Valve definitely made Steam a value add. Friends lists, cloud saves, etc.
I mean, at launch these features definitely did not exist (cloud saves) or were buggy (friends lists). Holding Half Life 2 hostage behind steam was definitely controversial at the time, and Steam was kind of... not great for quite a while. Valve were in it for the long haul though and it really is a great ecosystem now, there are still some gripes to be had but like you say, compared to every other store on PC there really is no competition.
I mean, at launch these features definitely did not exist (cloud saves) or were buggy (friends lists). Holding Half Life 2 hostage behind steam was definitely controversial at the time, and Steam was kind of... not great for quite a while. Valve were in it for the long haul though and it really is a great ecosystem now, there are still some gripes to be had but like you say, compared to every other store on PC there really is no competition.
A fun article from the time it was released: https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/32981