The obvious question that I don't see anyone asking is what happens when pirates build a more convenient service than Steam? There is no way a legitimate digital distributor can offer more convenience when they are saddled with many business and legal limitations.
Well it's not beyond the realm of imagination for pirates to create a platform like Steam but offer all games for free. Torrents are somewhat inaccessible to the average user and they they lack content management support.
PIrates are saddled with legal limitations too. One of the "features" that has allowed torrent sites to be a bit more difficult to challenge is that they're hosting trackers, not actual files. Legal issues affect both sides.
