That's going a little far. Apple and Valve do have costs to operating the storefronts. It's just that 30% is an overly big cut for what services they provide.
Between Steam and Apple I think the case against Apple is generally stronger. Steam has competition on PC, but Apple is an effective monopoly on iPhone software. That said, Apple does more work on each release with quality control and software reviews. Valve is much more hands off on each release, but does secondary work like maintaining Proton.
This just brings up the discussion of what the cut should be. 20%? 10%? 5%? Or maybe the full 30% is necessary? In a healthy market a business like this that has relatively low barrier to entry should be ripe for disruption, but even companies like GOG take a 30% cut. Why has nobody started a competing business that only does a 20% cut? I get that there is customer inertia with Steam, but it seems like nobody is really trying very hard to win customers.
Between Steam and Apple I think the case against Apple is generally stronger. Steam has competition on PC, but Apple is an effective monopoly on iPhone software. That said, Apple does more work on each release with quality control and software reviews. Valve is much more hands off on each release, but does secondary work like maintaining Proton.
This just brings up the discussion of what the cut should be. 20%? 10%? 5%? Or maybe the full 30% is necessary? In a healthy market a business like this that has relatively low barrier to entry should be ripe for disruption, but even companies like GOG take a 30% cut. Why has nobody started a competing business that only does a 20% cut? I get that there is customer inertia with Steam, but it seems like nobody is really trying very hard to win customers.