When it was released? Steam ran like shit for me until probably 2017. It’s finally a usable piece of software.
I also prefer steam because steam comes with a lot of benefits. If steam was still just a launcher and nothing more, I think most people would take issue with it today. That’s just not the case, though.
Easy way to manage games, huge sales, support forums, easy way to manage friends, steam workshop, support for pretty much every controller, fast download servers
And one thing that people probably don’t realize, is that steam will work with developers to implement patches. Many times when I play old games I’ll go to PC gaming wiki and see that I need a few patches and mods to make the game work, but the wiki will say that those patches and mods were implemented into the steam release. It’s really nice.