Godot

They aren’t going to stop you or anyone from making your own store and making it all free = freedom. You can also make your own steam.

We agree there. I never said otherwise. But just because people can make an alternative to Steam, Google, Facebook or whatever doesn't mean that Steam/Google/Facebook/whatever can't be shitty/closed. You missed the point.

I already wrote a lengthy explanation, I don't think writing more would help clarifying. If you don't see my point, or at least talk about something I actually said, then I think that's not on me.

This is a way to make it MORE popular

I'm not looking for popular, I'm looking for free. You know what's popular? Unity. Or even Unreal Engine.

Of course popular is nice.. but with approaches like this you put enshittification on the other side of the balance. You can get some popularity while compromising freedom (and it's ok to admit that), but don't be surprised when people who value freedom complain.

the license allows it.

Can you link to the license and source code of the store? I obviously wasn't talking about the engine, that one already has forks (redot, blazium ...I'm also eyeing bevy, though it's something else entirely).

The only repo I've found about the godot store is a sad readme.md used for issues, like many proprietary projects do when they want to make use of github as issue tracker without actually releasing code.

Also note that even if there would be free alternatives, that doesn't make proprietary software immune to being called out. Linux existing does not make Windows immune to critics.