From Steam founder Gabe Newell, 2011:

We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy," Newell said. "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24/7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country three months after the U.S. release and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.

The same can be said of movies/tv – except Steam saw the issue before EA and everyone made their own streaming stores, whereas all the video distributors have splintered into their own services.

I’m not sure where/why Hulu failed to gain the sort of share Steam attained. It existed early on and had … at least 3 big networks (iirc, not cbs? but abc, nbc and fox – then nbc dropped out to just do peacock, I think). Perhaps hulu didn’t pay enough for rights or perhaps Apple, Netflix and Amazon represented too many other players to make the equivalent arguments as Steam made.