Do they bank 8 billion dollars or does 8 billion dollars make its way from our hands to theirs. There is a difference. How much of that 8 billion goes to managing infrastructure?

In fact:

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/547025/steam-game-sales-revenue/

To be clear, I agree that the way our model works is broken. Wall street and infinite profit gains can only work so long until the system collapses, and Steam is a part of this. Some of the statements made here are just not factual and I feel the need to be pedantic, because I don’t believe that spreading misinformation will help anything. Attack CEO pay disparity or something useful and true.

Edit: I woke up and answered you without fully reading your post. Apologies, I didn’t answer you point, because I was on a soap box. The point still stands that the revenue they make could very well be going to infrastructure costs, necessitating a charge for using their store that is on everyone’s computer. If all you have is potato servers then what quality will the store front be?

I stand my last paragraph in the above, especially the last sentence.

It isn’t 30% profit. It’s a 30% charge. Servers, broadband connections, etc… are expensive. Those numbers may be pulled out of someone’s ass, so I don’t know their veracity, but 30% might not be too much.

I don’t believe they don’t use the YouTube API. So the changes Google might make wouldn’t necessarily affect Grayjay.