This is just false. Steam has evolved beyond just a marketplace, and I go there because I enjoy the tools they provide. From VR, to family sharing, home streaming, and more.
What's relevant to this discussion isn't what features you like about Steam, but what features cause people to make Steam accounts. In other words, is it actually possible for another player to compete on features alone?
Exclusives of any kind are anti-consumer, whether it is steam doing it or epic.
Anyway, I wonder how many people are in that position, where they have a giant Steam "library" that's mostly bundle titles and stuff bought on special, that they feel some sense of attachment to, but in reality wouldn't really miss when using a different launcher.
For what it's worth, I think your memory is mistaken here, it's actually kind of the opposite—early on, Humble Bundles always offered DRM-free downloads (in addition to Steam keys), and it was only later on that they began selling some games as keys only. As someone who greatly prefers getting naked executables, I was really sad when this happened.
Check out the page for the second-ever Humble Bundle in 2010 (the first doesn't appear to be in the Internet Archive). DRM-Free downloads are listed as a major selling point. Also, you'll note they advertise Linux support, which wasn't supported by Steam at the time. https://web.archive.org/web/20101215101427/http://www.humble...
As an aside, I actually have Steam keys of all the early Humble Bundle games sitting in my account, unredeemed after all these years. I've been thinking I could sell them if I ever needed emergency cash for some reason, but even though it's a common practice, it feels kind of wrong... I have downloaded and played these games, just not on Steam.
I'm skeptical that those unused Steam keys would have much value, given routine Steam sales. I've compiled a list of my Humble Bundle games with unredeemed keys (game names only, not the keys themselves) into a spreadsheet for friends.
Spotify appears to be positioning itself as an destination for exclusive, original audio programs, but those aren't music.
Not necessarily migrate, but offer (for free) the same game on Epic if you already have it on Steam; GOG did this for a few games (not that it helped GOG).
Edit: You can insert some EA keys from Steam into Origin: https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_Origin-redeemable_game...
And Valve is?
I'm not into games myself, but Valve has done tremendous work for gaming on Linux. That alone is enough reason for me to support them.
You get no rewards for playing the game. If you want new cards, you have to spend money on packs or spend money to enter drafts.
This old fashioned "just play the game because it's fun" mentality is dogma to Valve, but nowadays users want and require the Pavlovian reward systems.
Speaking to the choir I suspect, but god do I hate progression systems.
Haven't played Artifact, but I'm really not convinced by the narrative that Valve is removed from this stuff. TF2 and Counter Strike all have loot and inventory systems of their own. They're basically required in any free to play game.
There's also SteamVR
It depends on how you're defining "original content". I mean, yes they are paying for games to be Epic exclusive, however Epic released Fortnite, so they do have their own big releases
As a broad generalisation this is baldly wrong. I use a Steam account and buy things there because the platform has the things that you mention (on top of a multiplayer API that generally works pretty well). If it didn't have those things, I wouldn't use it anywhere close to how often I use it now. A very high percentage of the games on it are also available on other platforms (publisher-specific, GoG, the dev) and those are not materially worse than Steam if you only consider distribution.
Content platforms always compete on availability of content. Steam did the exact same thing early on with Half Life. Look at what's happening in the streaming video space. Look at console gaming.
Ultimately, people aren't making Steam accounts because of the Steam workshop or Steam forums or Steam chat or what have you—they're making Steam accounts because there's a game on Steam that they want to play.
If Epic's store had better features but the same games, existing Steam users would still continue to use Steam, because that's where their existing game libraries are. The only way Epic could compete on features alone is if it were possible to migrate Steam purchases to the Epic Store. Since Valve will never let that happen, Epic has to entice users with exclusive games.
And that could be great for everyone—if it caused games to be made that would otherwise never get developed. Consider how much great content the video streaming wars have produced. As annoying as it is to switch between subscriptions, I'd say TV viewers are winning right now.
The problem, of course, is that Epic isn't developing original content—they're paying for existing content to be removed from Steam. My great hope is that this will change in time. Original games take several years to develop, so if any are under way, we wouldn't have heard about them yet. In the meantime, we're getting PC ports of Journey and Detroit, so that's pretty neat!