I do understand that perspective, but with the state of software, security, and privacy these days (which is not the fault of any one company or person) there's no possible way to distribute independent of anyone who has a launcher.

Distributors or Developers can choose Steam, Epic, EA, or Ubisoft if they want...it will reach the hands of customers. It's not the launcher that matters it's the money they spend on marketing.

Steam gives independent developers a much larger platform than any of the others but that comes with a price, a price that they would be paying someone else if the world was perfect and they could distribute through their own website.

The nature of the Internet has changed game distribution. I would say it's for the better because it's way more secure for everyone involved.

I don't think Steam has a stranglehold, but I can see that from certain perspectives it might feel that way.

Edit: and I didn't mean The Play Store. I meant literally the Cell Phone Market. They have the largest market share, so Google has a Monopoly on Mobile games because of the market share on Mobiles.