Sorry for the late reply. And since people have said they don't like having this discussion in this thread, so I'll try to keep it short.
Publishers only care about where they will get more money. Getting EGS exclusivity money + money from Steam customers a year later is more than getting just the EGS money and no money from Steam customers. If you want to believe that skipping EGS exclusivity and releasing everywhere at the same time would have given them even more money then that is your prerogative. My point is that by buying EGS exclusives on Steam, Steam customers are validating the strategy of taking the exclusivity deal.
And if you or anyone else truly believes that Epic is desperate or failing at their strategy then I would strongly urge you look outside of your echo chamber. They have generated more goodwill in the last month with their giveaways than they have since launch. People are happily becoming users and customers of their store, with or without the sale coupon. Snowrunner was the last to report good sales figures and that launched before the sale discount happened. I personally know folks who pre-ordered the game and didn't need a discount/freebie to get them to spend money on the store. The sentiment on reddit (outside one particular subreddit) towards the EGS is hugely positive. There are people who actually say that EGS is better than Steam now because Steam doesn't sell their games at a loss. Like I said before, discounts and freebies are all it takes to buy customers.
This is not the first time this has happened either. Remember when the Windows store and UWP came out and there was a hugely negative reaction towards it from the PC gaming community? People avoided the store for ages until Microsoft came up with their $1 Gamepass deals. That's all it took to change people's minds. There are now people (PC gamers, not just Xbox folks) who call Gamepass the best gaming service ever. The Windows store does all the shit it used to do 3 years ago. It still puts encrypted folders on your hard drive that you can't access with an admin account. Games still have no mods. They are still unstable. But people will ignore all this because it's cheap enough. Nobody will claim the Windows store is successful but it is now acceptable to many. That is where Epic is heading. They are making the practice of store bought exclusivity acceptable to PC gamers at large.
Well, this didn't end up being short at all. Apologies to those who dislike this conversation. I'll refrain from bringing it up again.