I understand that you must feel good hating on valve, but what you say makes no sense whatsoever. centralization? steam is popular but by far not the only option:

notably, the final version of Horses has been reviewed and approved for distribution across numerous other PC storefronts, including the Epic Games Store, GOG, the Humble Store, and Itch.io

if you want yo buy this game, you have many options for that

This game literally has a scene with a child and a naked adult

it is insane out there for indies. The Steam issue is only part of the picture. Your big indie names like Supergiant and Landfall will keep trucking along because they have enough momentum and cache to ink deals with investors. But the smaller studios that are just getting off the ground? Investors have become very averse to signing with those teams, because they only see things in terms of ROI. It's such a risky bet, and even if everything works out, the tiny payday is not worth it to these types. It is more lucrative to just invest that money in index funds.

Everyone says "it's okay if AAA gaming collapses, we'll still have indies to save us", but we won't have indies to save us for much longer if there is no funding out there for new studios.