Knowing what we know about how developers/publishers/and companies in general work, can you blame people for being suspicious and on edge when they try to make some sweeping change that takes something from free to pretty much required paywall?
While maybe there was more outcry than necessary by people who normally aren't even affected, it didn't take a rocket scientist to see this was implemented badly from day one. There was VERY little thought put into it beyond, let's make more money off the backs of others, and no matter how they try to spin it, you don't have to look very hard to see it is true. Something like this is very easy to abuse if it's not heavily monitored, and they didn't even want to do that. It was a little effort for max profit approach plain and simple.
Look, when you buy a physical game and it goes through steam anyway and most games come from steam as the default distributor, you have a service that is pretty close to monopoly if not for origin and uplay. There will inevitably be some lashing out toward them. I am surprised people let them go for so long.
I don't even consider Origin or Uplay to be alternatives. They are simply storefronts for specific publishers. Good or bad, it's still not ideal to use them just for their properties. GoG is really the closest thing to a competitor that Steam has and that isn't saying much as a whole.
I like the idea of Steam - but honestly it is simply there to pad someones wallet. There is little reason there could not be an agnostic front end that does the exact same thing Steam/Origin/Uplay/even GOG and roll all different accounts into one. The problem is, everyone wants their maximum cut of the profits and control and doing so they'd potentially lose both.