Personally, as a customer, not a developer, this is disappointing to me, as there’s still no reason for me to shop on Epic when they don’t support my operating system, so this is likely just going to entice more developers to make me wait 6 months to play their games. Nonetheless, it’s gaming news.
Your examples of companies operating at a loss for years are all examples of the hockey stick graph of exponential, self-sustaining growth, but I don’t see any indication that that’s happening for Epic. Anecdotally, do you know anyone who’s stuck with EGS over other options without Epic’s thumb staying on the scales (exclusives, freebies, or discount coupons where Epic eats the cost)? Because I know I don’t. And their own infographics that they can cherry-pick to make them look as good as possible don’t back up exponential growth either.
Epic tends to have better regional prices and supports more currencies than Steam, so I do know of people who go for it just by virtue of this. Also, I wouldn’t completely disregard the freebies, because some of them probably cost them nothing, like the offers of Fortnite items for buying games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The Ubisoft games on Epic are activated on Ubisoft Connect and do not require Epic, so in that case there’s no downside even to those who dislike the launcher.