Back a few years ago, more than one person remarked how odd it was that Stardock hosted (for free) its primary competitor in the Windows desktop theming world (Samurize). It competed (and still does but the market has changed quite a bit since Windows Vista came out) with DesktopX. Why would we do that?
My answer was: I don’t like monopolies, especially ourselves.
When we were designing up the specifications for Impulse::Reactor, there was much debate over whether it should require the inclusion of the Impulse store or require the creation of Impulse store accounts. I was adamant that it shouldn’t because the job of Impulse::Reactor isn’t to replace Steamworks with something that’s just as exclusive. On the contrary, I don’t want Impulse to dominate. I don’t want Steam to dominate or any of the others either. In the past couple of years, I’ve seen enough of the sausage factory that is the game industry to know that you definitely do not want anyone having leverage over publishers or consumers.
If your motivation is to create excellent things, you want competition. If you’re a consumer, you want competition for your dollars.
No matter how wonderful a thing is when it starts out, the end behavior is inevitably the same once they have leverage. The solution is to prevent anyone from ever having a monopoly in the first place.
