It was the beginning of the end of pure, complete offline software ownership. They normalized it so thoroughly that a whole younger generation no longer really understands what's been lost.
That would have happened regardless because of companies like Adobe. There are way too many non-game-related services that were going to become online-only or even also subscription-only very quickly as the internet improved.
And honestly...what does it matter? I get the philosophical argument, but in all practicality you're playing the same games either way. Steam (at least in my experience) has never prevented me from playing something I wanted to.
