Steam Consolidation - Good, Bad, Inevitable, or Impossible?

[Lemur]

Just wanted to raise an issue for my fellow Orgahs to hash out for a bit:

Steam consolidation.

My thoughts: As much as I fear and despise monopolies, I think consolidating PC gaming under Steam is a good thing. My reasons are as follows.

• Steam is the least-worst online distribution system for PC games. None of the competing services such as Origin, Ubisoft's service (can't recall the name of it), battle.net, and so forth, can hold a candle to Steam. Among other things, Steam supports a robust offline environment, which is leagues ahead of the others.
• Steam is the least consumer-hostile of the services extant. (The push to include OS X and Linux are just two of the non-jerkish, non-evil moves Valve is making.)
• By consolidation, Valve will come under scrutiny and legal pressure. Issues such as the First Sale Doctrine (which are being sorted in Germany as we speak) will be worked out more quickly if Valve and Steam are in a clear position of dominance.
• If Steam achieves something resembling market dominance, Valve will come under increased pressure to spin Steam off as its own entity. Which would be a good thing. Probably.

These are my thoughts. Please feel free to rip them to shreds, poke holes in my reasoning, and generally sharpen my argument through vigorous debate. Thanks!