You don’t have to use the platform. Competition is good, and steam taking 30% is massive. I’m a huge fan of steam but the fears of what happens post-gabe should have us all wanting other companies to put pressure on them. Hopefully it’ll drive them to promise continued pro-consumer practices such as proton (let’s gloss over DRM)
Eh, in my experience that’s not how development works. With every new tool to improve efficiency, the result is just more features rather than using your new found time to improve your code base.
It’s not just from the publishers and shareholders either. Fixing technicial debt issues is hard, and the solutions often need a lot of time for retrospection. It’s far easier to add a crappy new feature ontop and call it a day. It’s the lower effort thing to do for everyone, management and the low down programmers alike.