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AOL Time Warner Netscape CNN... and AT&T?
Baldrson noted a bit running on Yahoo right now where the AOL, Time, Warner, Netscape, CNN mega corporation is in talks with AT&T for their cable network. The inevitable and scary consolidation continues ever onward. The US govt will be sold on eBay in a few years, but only Microsoft and the corporation formerly known as Netscape AOL Warner CNN AT&T Time (NAWCAT) will be left to bid. But since Nawcat will already own ebay, there will no doubt be rumors of unfair play.
Any ideas how this might affect Road Runner users? (Cable service from Time Warner)
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
CNN is a news channel owned by the Time Warner, and now the part of the Time Warner AOL company, their name is not part of either companies name.
This also isn't a merger so much as it is one large company buying a share of the assets of another. The rest of AT&Ts opperations would be seperate.
don't forget the fact that aol is foaming at the mouth for Yahoo! Check it:
i s?STRING=aoltimewarneryahoo.com&STRING=Search
http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/who
Forget Microsoft. Fear AOL.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
does this mean we'll get a 30 day trial AOL phone as well as CD?
Laws against monopolies are great, but if nobody bothers to enforce them, they are USELESS.
Would somebody please explain this to governments around the world? One day the companies will be TOO BIG to enforce anything upon! If one company owns, say 75% of the media, they can make AND break poloticians because this company OWNS the public opnion (sad but true).
"Citing ``people familiar with the situation,'' the paper said AOL would hold a 40 percent interest in the business and leave AT&T with the majority control it wants.
So AOL/TW won't get the entire AT&T cable market, just part of it.
Yet another reason I use ADSL.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
Why'd they stop? 'Cause all the "dark future" stuff they read about kept coming true! Reality TV, Corporate owned gov'ments, cameras in your toliet...Gee, I guess we really do live in interesting times.
It's a Brave New 1984.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
In the USA...
AOL is the internet (to most people)
Time/Warner is entertainment (to most people)
CNN is news (to most people)
Netscape is the browser (or used to be...)
ATT is long-distance phone service (to most people)
hmmm.....
Why not buy Microsoft (they are computing to most people)
-- Andy
Everybody knows that AT&T Broadband is for sale. It only makes sense that another cable company would be the one making the purchase. Comcast made the first offer, Cox is rumored to be interested, of course AOLTW is going to be interested. It makes sense for them. This isn't so much an evil megalo-corp bent on world domination as it is a large company that probably can't hit growth targets without making acquisitions.
And as far as size goes, there are plenty of companies out there that would dwarf AOLTW...some people need to calm down and take a look at the world before freaking out...
Juiced? Or Not?
... if people knew a bit more about economic necessities, they'd clearly see that there's no need for 'buying the government'. No government in the world will make decisions opposing their economical big players. That's what their counsellors are for, to prevent them from conducting stupid things that scare away the ones that pay their chairs (no, not directly, I'm not talking corruption here).
This is one of the simplest economical rules, which Marx (and I guess Adam Smith as well) had already pointed out, and not much has changed since then in that respect. The big corporations can make better use of that dough instead.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
(Disclaimer - I'm British, these are nominally American companies and this would mostly affect American users. Flame away if you think this is none of my business.)
I have to say, this whole saga sounds so much like AOL etc. _daring_ the government to stop them. They can't quite believe they're getting away with it but hey, if they can buy the world before anyone notices and complains then they might as well give it a try...
Someone _really_ needs some backbone to stand up to this, it's ridiculous. A company like this would have so much power it isn't funny and they need stopping. From a shareholder point of view, a company this large would likely be quite unwieldy and so probably wouldn't be as good value as the individuals currently are collectively.
Except look at the current 'business friendly' Whitehouse. Oh well, better luck in 2004, guys.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
poor little microsoft, all by it's lonesome out there in the big bad corporate world.
send contributions via paypal.
I just hope that the hewlett-packard compaq merger doesn't ever enter into this...they could take over the world.
The anti-salmon
I read a book called Red Mars where corporations on earth started buying small countries for their resources. They then had to govern the people of the country. The corporation wasn't much different than a government other than that economic policy was the law above everything else. Everyone fears that coporations will control and manipulate industries to work towards their goals, but isn't that what a government does now?
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
An interesting resource guide to what the major media companies own.
which is what they will say when you ask for better service....
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
Microsoft helped create the computer/software world. You're a fool if you think otherwise. Your close mindedness is typical of the avergage /.er.
I read slashdot cause I like perspective. I use Windows. I use Linux. I know heaps about Windows. I know heaps about Unix. I program under Windows. I program under Unix.
I get angry when I read obviously brainwashed posts. Even if we just talk about the software world, there are companies that are just as devious as Microsoft (only not as big - therefore not as noticable). Ever heard of Sun or Oracle? They're just as much a threat as Microsoft is. In the past, all they've cared about is making big money from big companies - they never cared about the little guys with PCs at home. In the end, Microsoft's and Gate's charitable donations are to important things (health, education, third worlds). I can't remember the last time McNeally or Ellison doing that. The last big thing Ellison bought was prolly a new jet plane.
By talking about Microsoft as if they're some kind of 'evil' entity, you make belittle the real problems.
And BTW, slashdot is supposed to be "news for nerds". Not "news for geeks". Discussions that aren't computer related somehow end up bashing Microsoft. It's childish.
against monopolies. In and of itself, monopolies are not illegal. Iit's only when you abuse that monopoly power that it's against the law.
We voted him in, blech.
"We" as in "The people who manipulated the votes and intentionally miscounted ballots"? SCNR...
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here:
Why Broadband Is So Narrow?
where the state of broadband is discussed in good detail. In fact, this month's issue of Forbes ASAP had a few articles (check the first 4 listed starting at Internet II in particular) discussing the current viability of broadband, future implications of Internet II, how the Internet should grow in the future, and how the government should help its growth.
I don't know enough about the current situation regarding these topics to make intelligent comments about it, but these articles IMO did a good job painting the current picture. I HIGHLY suggest these articles for anyone not familiar with the current nightmare growing in broadband regulation/deregulation, the growth of the net, and DSL vs. Cable Modem providers.
t.
"Corrupting our youth one mind at a time"
Seriously though, in the timeline for the roleplaying game Cyberpunk, corporations successfully lobbied for a federal law deputizing their security officers to enforce the law within corporate controlled "security zones" (city business districts, company owned housing developments, etc). How long before that happens for real?
The reason Microsoft is more dangerous is primarily that Microsoft is a danger internationally.
AOL is a big ISP in some European countries, but nowhere near the biggest.
Time Warner isn't important outside the US.
Most people in Europe don't even know CNN exists.
Netscape is mostly gone anyway.
AT&T isn't important in Europe.
Microsoft is more dangerous - they own a huge market share pretty much anywhere in the world.
Ideally, boycott both - but killing Microsoft is more important.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Those damn Europeans will be litting companies like GE and Honeywell merge.
Best Slashdot Co
A company like this would have so much power it isn't funny and they need stopping.
Cue the anarchist terrorists with stolen ex-Soviet antitank weapons...
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
They do.
AFAIK current versions of M$IE take you to msn.com immediately (controlling information). Thanks to Smart Tags(tm), they'll provide you with whatever related information they see fit, even if you avoid accessing msn.com.
By attempting to monopolize M$IE and Media Player, they control how you receive information. Once they've succeeded killing of competitors, they'll add censoring of "dangerous" websites (e.g. linux.org, redhat.com) to their monopolist information access kit.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
...does it mean that AOL would finally have enough bandwidth that it wouldn't have response problems during peak usage times? That's one of the frustrations I had with using it.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
I thought I read something about this months ago. And, well, my only choice is Road Runner. Anyone know when I may 'select' my cable modem provider?
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
CNN is a news channel owned by the Time Warner, and now the part of the Time Warner AOL company, their name is not part of either companies name.
Neither is Netscape which is also a subsidiary and isn't part of their name either. I thought it was quite obvious that the name was a joke and they main point of it was to show how big AOL Time Warner is getting.
This also isn't a merger so much as it is one large company buying a share of the assets of another. The rest of AT&Ts opperations would be seperate.
Exactly where is it mentioned that this is a merger? It is mentioned in the Slashdot blurb as well as the linked article that AOL is attempting to buy AT&T's cable network. The slashdot blurb jokes that at the current rate AOL Time Warner will soon own everything except for Microsoft.
I am completely stunned by the fact that not only could you post a comment that implies you don't get what are obvious exagerrations used in a humorous context but the fact that your post is at +5 indicates that a bunch of slashdotters don't either.
Politics is the entertainment wing of industry. You don't need to 'buy' a country. All you need to do is buy the people who sit in key organizational, policy and operational roles in government. Those are called elections.
Well, he also happened to be the enemy of our best ally in the region (Israel), and also the enemy of a nation with middling ties to the US (Saudi Arabia), and Iraq's army, while not particularly modernized, was not of inconsiderable size -- within the top 10 in manpower, ISTR.
And the whole "I'm going to invade because I've got a historical claim to your land" is more than slightly destabilizing; if allowed to stand as precedent, probably just about every reasonably-old nation on Earth could use that as an excuse. That situation might make enormous amounts of money in the short term for the US (being the world's leading provider of small arms, IIRC), but isn't desirable from, oh, just about any other point of view.
Oh, and it also wouldn't have helped if Israel decided it a) had been abandoned by its one historical major ally, b) was surrounded by people obsessed with killing them, and c) was facing a madman with a rather large army, chemical-weapon warhead artillery, and a nuclear ambition. Given that Israel is thought to be a nuclear power, after all.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Well, if this is the case, Id like to stand up and suggest that they *should be*. I have no interest in being a servant to monopolies - nor do I have interest in being a martyr (like living in the bush without electricity to avoid the power company).
Most people would agree - and guess what, in a democracy, people make the laws of the land... even those that affect the economy (*gasp*). I suggest when a market doesn't have fair competition it should:
A) be 'bought' by the government and offered as a non-profit public service (because the free-market 'advantages' are not at work.. and they are the purpose of this whole capitalism thing (as far as the citizens are concerned))
B) be broken into competing business to encourage/stimulate competition, price movements, innovation.
People have been so polluted by corporate-speak media that they actually feel it is not 'right' to enact law that might effect the economy - free markets rule today - and democracy can take a back seat... "Power" should exist in no entity that is not democratically* elected.
Bollocks to that mess: see here friends
*as in 'real' democracy, not the circus of smoke and mirrors that the Plutocrats of USofAmerica organize every couple years...
Except look at the current 'business friendly' Whitehouse. Oh well, better luck in 2004, guys.
It is going to take more than 3 years for the Americans to start voting, and demanding democratic reforms, that will enable them to re-ignite their democracy. The Republicrats have been colluding to exclude all others for 150 years - why does it matter who they elect, there will be no change from either party... nothing of consequence... maybe they'll debate about education reform or public health care - yet again...
The entire political system is so corrupt (literally) that it is an outright sham(e).
What concerns me are three basic issues:
1. The monopolistic aspect of this potential merger. There is already a paucity of competition for broadband in the U.S. with most people probably only having a single choice. Having a company as huge as AOLTW controlling a majority of the cable modem business in the U.S. would likely result in service degradation and rising rates. Just look at Microsoft to see what a monopoly does for/to consumers.
2. Because AOL is a proprietary service aimed at the Internet neophyte, many people are concerned that the only choice for broadband would be a high-speed pipeline through which AOL could pump its ceaseless banner ads and spam. In addition to the content issue, the proprietary nature of the service would make it impossible for people to run FTP servers, web servers, mail servers, etc. (contrary to popular belief, customers may run servers under the terms of many cable franchises).
3. AOL has a long history of censoring users. While this might make some religious zealots and guilt-ridden absentee parents happy, it is a chilling prospect to those who wish to engage in adult discussions on anything from breast cancer to S&M clubs.
You have to be silly to think that humonguous companies have morals. The only moral and only rule is to make money. If it takes killing a few, who cares, especially if it's in a far away country. You have to increase your profit or you suck and die. Read this about Coca-Cola and browse through this google search. Being an unionist (trade unions) is one of the most dangerous "pastimes" on Earth. And if you think it doesn't happen in the "Civilized" world - think again.
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
There's this little mom & pop operation called Nike (I know, you probably haven't heard of them) that does just that.
-Legion
Time Warner isn't important outside the US.
What?
What again?
"electional"? Is that from the George W. Bush dictionary?
Sounds more like Al Sharpton to me. "And things done got full of electional corrupticizing, ya-yus."
--saint
Histarical chect pounding aside, AT&Ts broadband unit has been it a hurt for a long time. It's not suprising that AOL Time-Warner is considering this purchase.
As for weather it's good for consumers: well, market forces have acted to consolidate ISPs throughout the world. This isn't just a U.S. phenomenon. Perhaps the minimum efficient scale of this kind of service is similar to that of telephone service (vary large). We've learned from the past 100 years that regulation of monopolies isn't *always* a good thing. There are certain natural monopolies in free markets. We have seen this in telephone service, where we tried to regulate a natural monopoly out of existance, then after those regulations were eliminated - at a time when there were several large competitors in the market - a consolidation took place, not because of anti-competitive practices of one player, but because it was more efficient to do business on a larger scale than any on the indevidual players were able to do in their form at that time.
The same might be said of the internet access market. Given the bariers to entry, (exhorbinnet infastructure cost, support costs, etc.) it might be more cost effective to operate on a vary large scale, rather than have many small competitors in the merket. Just look to the DSL service provider market for evidence of this. Independant DSL service providers have been going under right left and center. This is not because of anti-competitive practices, or pricing; it's because they weren't able to cost effectively manage infastructure and support. Perhaps this market is simply a natural monopoly and the free markets are moving to increase efficiency.
Or onthe other hand, it could be a massive conspiracy... which I grant you would make for a better story, but just isn't true.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Does Nike literally force people to work there, or do they merely offer a better job, however horrid it might be to ivory western sensibilities, than their local third world "economy" offers? If the latter, then they are part of the good solution, not part of the problem.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Leaving aside the morality or practicability of the situation, AOL would just be a vertically integrated media content supply and delivery supply chain. (Imagine AOL at reliable broadband speed... Why, they'd become huge. Oh. They ARE huge.)
But not all the way down to the hardware it would run on. There are sensible reasons why you're not likely to ever see them bid on shares of Intel any time soon.
As the automotive industry has shown, in hard or unstettled time, that's just not a good idea. If you fall out of favor at anypoint in the chain ("We don't like < whatever > !") the entire chain falters.
Why do you think the vehicle manufacturers don't make tires? If Ford couldn't sell cars because of Firestone's bad press, (or Ford Tire Company's bad press,) a third of the automotive production capacity of the Western world be dead in the water. One faulty tire making machine spewing out substandard product could idle hundreds of thousands of people and cause economic dislocation greater than the GNP of many nations (combined!)
Only in the area of operating systems (I won't quibble about the operating part,) do we have such a ridiculous concentration of supply versus demand with just ONE supplier having acquired, by successive illegal and anti-competetive means, 85% of the total market.
When the patforms shifts to 64-bits and implements bio-metric security, the 85% will find themselves hamstrung in their efforts to improve their lot.
Luckily, M$ can't get in where security is an issue. NO company, NO country is going to risk using M$ anything in contracts where they have to garantee 99.999999% up time or face the consequences. (M$ Outlook crashes on me almost EVERY time I use it. Its the only piece of M$ software in my house and I use it to remind myself of how bad their products are.)
"Starwars" and the Missile Condom" will be the death of M$ if you play it right. Linux is hard to hack and much more reliable. Prove it (with help from ths NSA, etc) and the rewards will be truly great.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Hey, whatever happened to pithy wit?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
At least it's still called America Online in other parts of the world; while the US is being replaced by a huge congolmerate so is the rest of the desireable earth.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
The USA is not and never has been a democracy- its a republic. Pretty big difference.
America is a Republic in this sense:
An autonomous or partially autonomous political and territorial unit belonging to a sovereign federation.
Each independant 'autonomous territiorial unit' is a democracy in itself.
Please, if you want to debate symantics, be honest about it...
Lameness
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Oh well, better luck in 2004, guys.
2004? What the hell are you talking about? The next election is in 1984. I hear Reagan is going to promise no new taxes, and...
Oh, wait, your right, it is 2001. Sorry, with everything going on over here, I got a little confused.
grep -ri 'should work'
> This is great news for all of us. We finally have
> a company that would challenge Microsoft.
This is great news for all of us. We finally have a company that would challenge IBM. - Me, you, everyone, about 12 years ago.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -lies
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monopOlion, from mon- + pOlein to sell
Date: 1534
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
How much of America's opinions are based on what they see on television? How many trust the news media? If they don't believe what they see on CNN where do they go for another opinion, AOL?
With media centralizing aroung AOL/TW and expanding its collective influence with yet another company the size of AT&T it is not the overall size of the company that matters, but the audience it reaches. I consider the effect of a single media entity's influence on the majority of Americans a very big deal indeed.
the problems of this industry.
M$ grew to its present size by using techniques worthy of "Tony Soprano."
Jus't because they grew big doesn't mean that its good. Not for them and not for anyone else.
Right now the PC sales slump (negative growth!) means vastly reduced sale cashflow. Their products are not so useful or so unusable that they can coerce replacement. I know a financial firm using DOS to run their Fax sever. I know someone using Windows 3.11. That's all he needs. I know people using Windows '95 or '98. It came with the PC, it works well enough and that's where they'll stay. Who's got money to waste?
In nature/agriculture a monopoly is called a monoculture and its particularly vulnerable to changed environments conditions, pests and parasites. (Computing equivalent: Change of platform, script-kiddies and viri?)
In economics it called a monopoly and needs special safeguards placed on it before it restricts trade in other areas of the economy.
Not only can M$ cause inflation strictly through greed, endanger its users through its constant lagging in implementing security (I don't think Symantec "et alia", are worried about being made unnecessary,) but its ability to usurp other people's innovations to fold it into Windows is a powerful disincentive to development.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
grep -ri 'should work'
Yet another reason I use ADSL.
Plenty of us on cable modems used be on xDSL, before the DSL companies started dropping like flies.
After two providers died without warning, and my account was sold to different ISPs a couple of times, I decided on cable because cable companies have apparently figured out that you need to MAKE money in order to stay in business.
Don't get me wrong, I'd certainly rather have DSL, but I need reliability above all. If and when I ever get DSL again, I'll be keeping the cable modem as well as a backup.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
Well, the main problem with the cable industry is that building it out in the 70s and 80s proved to be a very expensive proposition. Smaller companies financed it with junk bonds and so on, and when they found that adoption rates were lower than expected, they sold out to bigger fish, who sold out to bigger fish. And so on, until AT+T and TimeWarner and a couple others ended up holding the bag of lots of customers and lots of debt (AT+T is billions in the hole).
AT+T's theory was that they were the bluest of the blue chips and they would be able to carry all that debt without a problem. When the dotcom bubble deflated, it turned out they were very wrong.
Cable Internet is probably not a super-profitable business, but it does get the TV subscription rates up. And once you have 'digital cable' installed, you are more likely to do the things that make them the real money -- premium channels, PPV, etc. (And eventually local telephone services, maybe.)
The upshot is that it you are probably right -- it will take very large diversified companies to effectively pay off the infrastructure costs without being swamped. The real moral of the story is that running a wire into everyone's house for a luxury service is a bad idea -- which is why you'll never see fiber-to-the-curb. Expect the next great build-outs to wireless only.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
When the corporations get their own militaries and have wars, I'll be scared.
Do oil mercenaries count?
I wanna see more conglomerates splitting apart into seperate companies that each to their thing well without the massive overhead of being a small cog in a huge inefficent machine.
Oh, and death to CorporateSpeak as well!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Salmon Rushdie suggests hopefully that there are no tyrannies that cannot be successfully resisted....
He cannot have considered a financial rather than a political/military one.
Political/military tyrannies give in exchange little or nothing; the thinnest illusion of security for their license to pillage and enslave.
By the innovation of offering a miserable amount of money outright thievery and slavery is given the imprimatur of laws and contracts. An illusion is created of acceptance by all parties almost disguising the fact that the various forms of slavery cannot be distinguished from each other by the pittance paid.
With indecent dishonesty, the few can obtain with deceit what would likely be unobtainable by force or coercion. This innovation is clearly the most profound of the Twentieth Century, far beyond semiconductors, air travel and automobiles.
Unlike the flesh-and-blood tyrant, the deathless corporation extends itself endlessly into all dimensions.
A new guide-book is in order, to suggest how to resist an organism that masquerades in providing as little as possible of what the slaves think they want. Of course arrogance (and hubris) will likely see a final resolution in the streets....Perhaps Rushdie is right after all.
There's been no major netscape release since june 2000? Excuse me?
Netscape 6.1 (released last month) is effectively the *first* release of the new, mozilla-based, rewritten from scratch, standards compliant, stable, fast, skinnable, netscape browser.
You can argue about "fast" (depends on your computer - it flies on mine) and it's certainly not "lean and mean" but it certainly counts as a major release.
I say "effectively the first" because 6.0 was, by all accounts, a complete disaster. While Netscape's official corporate position is still "it was the right product at the right time", even their own developers unofficially admit that this is only because they had to release *something* before they became completely irrelevant. 6.1 is what 6.0 should have been.
Now, I don't know whether their market share has increased due to 6.1 or not (ime 6.0 caused such a backlash that a lot of people are simply not willing to give 6.1 a chance, and those are by definition the people that were willing to give netscape a chance a year ago) but it's simply not true to claim that there hasn't been a major netscape release since june of last year. 6.1 is imho the most significant netscape release since 4.5 (which was the equivalent point in the 4.x series - previous 4.xs sucked in the same way 6.0 did, 4.5 was the first decent release)
No offense or anything, but what the hell is this supposed to mean? 6.0 sucked, so you're just gonna pretend it didn't happen?
When I say "major release", I'm referring to version number - that's why they're called "major" and "minor" numbers. I don't consider 6.1 to be a major release, as many bugs as it may have fixed, for the same reason that I don't consider IE 5.5 a major release. If Netscape had sat on their hands until the 6.1 codebase was ready, then called that 6.1, I'd be agreeing with you. Hell, they could call the new version 7.0 if they wanted, except that it would be tantamount to admitting that 6.0 was a dog.
Finally, as an afterthought on speed: I tried and quickly buried NS 6.0. Since then, I stuck with Mozilla builds, until I finally got tired of the waiting game and migrated to MSIE on Windows, and Konqueror on Linux. I'm due to take another look soon, but at the time, no version of Mozilla yet built could compare speedwise to either of those alternatives.
Who is Ms. AOL Twat? :)
If you are so worried about AOL MegaConclomo Inc. taking over your cable think about backing a MUD (Municipal Utility District) where you live. A MUD once established takes control of local utilities and puts them in the hands of an elected board. Let AOL buy AT&T, then watch as municipal districts all over the country take it back piece by piece. There's no more small guy provider any more or at least not for very much longer. That's gone forever. The only recourse we have now is our local (LOCAL) government.
Call me a socialist? Well you get two choices these days, unfettered capitalism building monopolies more powerful then most nations or capitalism held on a leash by prevailing socialism. If a corporation grows too powerfull and holds a monopoly it should get taken by the people with the power of eminent domain.
You've already encountered this sort of strategy before. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers is one of if not the biggest name in the venture capital business. They have funded companies ranging from Yahoo! to Amazon to Netscape. Most of the internet revolution rests on the cash they infused into the market (which by the way didn't exist before the companies they backed created it). Complaining that companies all shouldn't own the same thing is a moot fucking argument. Corporations have been scratching each other's backs for years which pretty much amounts to a monopoly if not in name. Stop bitching about one company owning everything you see and hear. Your new Nikes are made in the same factory as Silver Series velcro strap shoes Wal-Mart sells for nine bucks. Tommy Hilfiger shit is made in the same factory that makes Guess shit. A good portion of the stock photography you see in just about everything from advertisements to brochures to magazines are all from a handful of private collections. Stop giving a shit whether your broadband has an AT&T label or a AOL Time Warner label, they're both existing to take your money and then make you thank them for it. Assuming they're going to fuck you over or make you install Windows on your computer is ridiculous, they want the biggest market share they can. Pissing off all the non-Windows users in a given market is not high on their agenda. Besides which if you're not forking over heavy wads of cash for a T1 you should just be happy you've got a broadband connection. Bitching you can't abuse a network service in breech of the service contract is retarded. Besides communication monopolies aren othing new. Silly slashdotters don't remember that AT&T used to own the entire national telephone system. The only competition to corporate giants is municipally owned services (yes that's right kids, low fat socialism) or other corporate giants.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Does anybody besides me ever wonder from time to time if we could eventually see the two 500-lb. gorillas get together? Maybe it's an aggravated paranoid fantasy, but if AOL ditched Netscape and M$ wanted to roll Hotmail and MSN into AOL...?
Naaaah. The SEC would never stand for it, right?
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->