Steam came before it's time, while we were still on dialup. Once high-bandwidth internet became common then it made sense, as did many other cloud-computing and cloud-storage ideas.

Sadly, it still has problems, especially when end users can't get along with the customer-facing staff and lose access to their licenses. There's also the problem that has revealed itself with other game clients, when games shut down, when distro-clients go out of business (I still hold a grudge with Stardock / Gamestop) and when governments seize cloud storage without consideration for the end-users (as happened with MegaUpload). When Newell dies or retires, then we only can wait to see what becomes of Steam and our libraries and what company is going to attempt to buy (and exploit) all that responsibility.

It's going to be trading Robert Baratheon for Joffrey.