• Zorque@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    One can have a monopoly without directly trying for it. Especially when it comes to services with a lot infrastructure involved. Once you make those investments, it’s hard for anyone to compete against them.

    A monopoly just means you control a significant amount of the market. I think, technically, they would fall under oligopoly. Where a few businesses have control of the market instead of just a single business. But the point is they have a far larger share of the market than most others. This is mostly because they create a product that people want to use, instead of making a service that unfairly captures the market through things like game exclusivity or hostile takeovers.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      But when the EU recently announced service gatekeepers, Valve was not among them. Microsoft is.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        *Because they don’t meat the minimum financial and monthly user criterias to be taken into consideration when analyzing the monopoly status of their platform

        You forgot to add that part 👍

        • woelkchen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Because they don’t meat the minimum financial and monthly user criterias to be taken into consideration when analyzing the monopoly status of their platform

          So Steam does not meet / meat🥩 the financial and monthly user numbers to count as a monopoly? So Steam is not a monopoly then. Great.

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            No, the PC videogame market is too small for the European Union to analyse it.

            If the local hardware store is the only one selling screws for 100km around and it doesn’t show up on their list, does it means they don’t have a monopoly or it simply means that they don’t bother checking that because the hardware store doesn’t:

            Make 6.5B a year/doesn’t have a market capitalization of 65B

            Doesn’t have 45m monthly users in the union AND 10k business users in the union

            Meets those criterias three years in a row

            Because these are the criterias required for the EU to take the time to analyze a companies’ position in their market.

            • woelkchen@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              No, the PC videogame market is too small for the European Union to analyse it.

              Then please provide ANY form of facts-based analysis that Steam is a monopoly and no “Trust me, bro” isn’t that.

              • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                The European Union considers some companies to be a monopoly with a smaller market presence than Steam has in the PC video games sales market. That comes from your own source buddy.

                • woelkchen@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  That comes from your own source buddy.

                  You continue to deflect that you have no proof that Steam is a monopoly.

                  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    3
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    1 year ago

                    Your whole argument to show that it isn’t is based on ignoring their market dominance and referencing the DMA that hasn’t even been used to analyze Steam’s position in their market because the PC video game market as a whole isn’t big enough to be covered by the DMA.