When we look back at Steam in five or ten years, it may look like a dying store and other, competitive stores, will be the place to be.
The competitive store that happens to be the leader in 10 years may not be Epic's store, but it probably won't be Valve's and Epic's moves right now are opening the door and paving the way for a vibrant competitive economy. Competition in stores is going to be absolutely best for consumers and probably good for developers and publishers as well. The stores that tend to win are the stores that offer the best to their customers. It's very difficult for customer interest to be king with one store. One may look at other stores, like Origin or U-Play. Those aren't real competitors to Steam. A competitor to Steam needs to have an installed base and be sufficiently neutral in alignment so that all publishers and developers who support the store can trust a fair economy. That's just not possible with direct stores that are controlled by publishing interests. It's also not going to come from adjacent services that have other priorities (like Discord, for example). Epic has credibility here because they have been supplying engine technology to the industry for over 20 years and we have all come to be able to trust and rely upon Epic's fair play and good will.
Also, the way the company is organized and managed is really important to this calculus as well. Valve is a private company and, to the best that we can see, a huge amount of the value that Valve has generated has been used to enrich the handful of people who own and manage the company. There's nothing wrong with that, BTW! My business is private, too! Epic's business, until recently, was private and closely held. It's still private, but not as closely held as before. This is important to consider... Every time Valve makes a dollar, they have to make a decision on whether to put in their own pockets or to reinvest it into technology (or whatever). Valve has made significant investments into technology, and should be applauded for the resultant innovations. But they have also taken a significant amount of value off the table and, when they've reinvested, they've tended to put it to a lot of other activities besides the store that is generating all of the revenue. They've been able to do this because they haven't had to worry about it. There has been no viable competitor to Steam. They have had no external force sufficient to challenge their revenue share and no external force sufficient to motivate a sufficient reinvestment of revenue
