I'm the opposite, for a very long time I did my very best to avoid reading any VNs or getting any games if it meant I had to make a Steam account. I don't like Steam bothering me for updates, nor do I like getting their pop-ups for various other miscellaneous things when you use their client even slightly unconventionally. That said, there is a huge convenience factor to it. Especially since there is a good crossover between gamers and VN readers. So I definitely understand why Steam became the default option for many once VNs started gaining in popularity in western markets.
That said, I really do hate how a handful of tech monopolies (or oligopolies if you want to get technical about it) have so much control over virtually everything we do. And I kind of hoped that at least VNs could manage to avoid falling into their orbit. If big Eroge had to exist (to facetiously quote @Zakamutt signature), I would rather that monopoly belong to an actual Visual Novel company that cares about visual novels to some extent. Steam really doesn't care about VNs, yet they are happy to take advantage of an unfair market place to absorb the western VN market.