Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world precisely because US companies are invested there.
So if the US companies pulled out, the bananas would suddenly turn into factories and internet connections? Haitian farmers sell their bananas to us because our evil multinational corporations pay the best prices. What is wrong with that?
As for "violence and bloodshed," you may very well be right, but if so the government should be prosecuting those corporations. Violence and bloodshed are not a part of a free market--rather it is an indication that the government is not doing its job.
As for our government knocking over the governments of other countries, you may be quite right about that. I am not too thrilled about our foriegn policy. But if this is the case, the fact remains that the problem with third world countries is the screwups of governments (theirs or ours) not a lack of access to technology or the exploitation of evil corporations. Sending them internet connections is not going to solve anything.
I think this presents a false choice between using technology for "profit and recreation" or for helping poor people. The history of technology tends to show that the two go hand in hand: what often stimulates new inventions is precisely the desire of the rich for new toys. They pay a high premius for having something new, and then as the technology is refined, the benefits are spread to everyone.
This "ethical technology" thing is a crock. The problem with third world countries is not that the big bad United States won't share their technology, it is that third world countries have economic and social systems that make a modern free-market economy unworkable. It is hard for businessmen to build factories or office buildings or internet connections when it is about to get nationalised by the government or destroyed in the next Civil War.
If a third-world country chose to implement an actual free-market economy, with low taxes, secure private property, and a stable currency, they would experience a great deal of economic growth. US investors could invest there without fear of the government taking their investment or making it worthless by devaluing the currency. Such a country could in 50 years be as rich as any nation is today.
I am all for helping the poor, but I think we should keep things in perspective. It is not the fault of the West that the third-world poor are poor. And simply building them internet connection, while a noble goal, is not going to solve the problem.
Until Apple offers an OS that doesn't crash, doesn't cost $$, is completely open, and runs on many platforms (x86, powerpc, alpha, sparc...), forget them.
If Apple continues with Darwin, this is exactly what you will have. It already doesn't crash, doesn't cost money, and partially open. It is written in a way that it can be easily ported to other platforms.
Remember though that they are a hardware company, so they are not going to give all their software for free, and they are not going to develop software for competing platforms. But this is true of any corporation, and you have to buy hardware from someone.
I had to use X for hours before I figured out that middle button is paste. And you don't have to do edit->copy, edit->paste on a Mac. You can do this with keyboard shortcuts which takes practically no time at all. As I am sure you are aware, Apple established the convention of using zxcv for the 4 most common operations, so you can invoke them by feel with one hand. And part of the problem with X is that this middle-button-paste is not documented at all. Nor is it terribly consistent. It works slightly differently differently in some applications than others. Nearly every Mac app I have seen supports the standard File and Edit menu commands with the standard key shortcuts. Linux simply does not have this level of consistency.
The other thing I find really annoying about X cut-and-paste is that the operations of selecting and copying are indistinuaishable. For example, if I want to paste a URL into Netscape, selecting the current URL blows away the new URL I just copied. It ought to be possible to select text without clobbering the contents of the clipboard. I also frequently want to use the contents of the clipboard several times, and I would like it to stay there until I am done with it. In X this means that I can't do any text selections (say in emacs) until I am done with the contents of the clipboard. The time I save with the middle-button click is more than taken up in going back to recopy something that got overwritten in the clipboard.
There are a *lot* of things like that in X. For all its improvements, the unix GUI's are still less intuitive, consistent, and useful than either Windows or the Mac OS. Linux is a kick-ass OS in technical terms, but it has a long way to go before I am willing to give up my Mac as my primary home computer.
or maybe Im wrong. Can you change monitors on these things without too much hassle?
Not a chance. It is hard to replace the memory without breaking something. I am reasonably competent with changing computer components, and I have not taken my iMac apart at all--I'm afraid I'm gonna break something.
On the other hand, the iMac has one of the nicest 15" monitors I have seen. I don't know what the failure rate is, but you can get rock-solid images at 1024 X 768 resolution. I suspect that lemon monitors are rare.
I have an iMac, and although the CD has not broken, and I don't expect it to, it is still pretty cheap. You have to pull it out manually, and it is not mounted securely, and so it makes rather noisy rattling sounds.
My modem is also very> flaky.
The iMac is a sweet machine--fast processor, gorgeous monitor, great form factor-- but the CD-ROM and modem leave a lot to be desired.
If you don't think this is true I will remind you of the Railroad barons that neccessitated the creation of antitrust laws in the first place.
The railroad gained their monopoly in part because they were given exclusive land grants at well below cost. No one could compete with them, because they could not afford to build the railroads without government help. Thus the railroad barons were *not* a failure of the free market. They were a result of government interference.
Let's just shoot Bill Gates and be done with it. These are software executives! How the hell can you caompare them to murderers? You are out of your mind.
This doesn't go nearly far enough. Windows sucks. Microsoft sucks. The government should simply nationalize all of Microsoft's assets and disband the company. It can place all Microsoft software and its source in the public domain.
After all, corporations are not persons and they have no rights.
Can't does not mean shouldn't. I think everyone here agrees that a business that hired only whites is a moron. The question is whether the government or anyone else has the right to dictate who he may or may not hire. If you believe in private property, then I would think that you would support someone's right to hire whomever they choose, whether they agree with the reasons or not.
Nor is the existence of the Act any news. MS's lawyers should have been keenly aware of it all along, and if MS didn't want to fall afoul of it, all they had to do was behave.
The problem is that what Microsoft is accused of is "combinations in restraint of trade." That is so vague and Microsoft has a large enough market share that pretty much anything they do can be interpreted as a "combination in restraint of trade." Thus about the only way Microsoft could have avoided this is if they had stopped developing new products, and made sure they never pissed anyone off. As much as many/.ers would like this, I think we can agree that Microsoft's OS success does not make it unethical for them to produce Windows products.
I'm not an Objectivist, but I am familiar with her work, and you are mistaken:
it assumes that all businesses act honorably (by this I mean that they do not lie, cheat, or steal). Those that do, according to Objectivism, must fail because the people will not buy from a business which does these things.
Anyone who has any familiarity with Rand knows that the sole purpose of an Objectivist government is to prevent people (and organizations, which are groups of people) from violating the rights of others. Stealing does this. So does cheating and lying (which are forms of fraud.) If Microsoft were to order its employees to do these things, Rand would be the first to advocate their being brought to justice.
But I pose a question: what if the people do not know what M$ does? What if it is so clever at hiding these things, masking them in the jargon of a technology with whic depressingly few people are familiar, such that it can do whatever it wants and people who only think they know what's going on accept it.
This is where courts of law and evidence come in. If someone thinks that Microsoft has stolen someone else's code, for example, they can take MS to court to recover damages. I fully support that right.
This is not the issue here. Microsoft is in essence being sued for being too successful, and then using its success in one market to help it succeed in others. This does not qualify as "theft, lying, or cheating." It is called competition. Microsoft spent a lot of money to produce a (bloated and buggy, but nonetheless) very popular and useful product. It is not theft for them to set conditions on the use of this product, including giving discounts to dealers who sell only its product.
I find your lack of understanding of Rand's ideas amazing. You clearly did not take the time to understand even the basic principles of the philosophy you claim has a "fatal flaw." I suggest that before you post, you make sure you know what you are talking about.
You are right, Windows 98 and Sun are targeted at different markets. However, Sun and Windows NT are competing in the workstation market. Granted, that's not really what the discussion was about...
So, you're saying that the only operating system to challange Microsoft in many years has been written by thousands of people donating their time (recently estimated at a worth of close to a billion dollars) and the market entry threshold is *low?*
Actually, yes. That is a billion dollars for a complete OS and a bunch of programs for it. Microsoft spends a lot more than a billion dollars for R & D in a year. Apple spent $400 million for NeXT, which was just to prop up their OS. And in fact I suspect that there are many companies that would be willing to pay a lot more than a billion dollars for Linux's market share. So yes, I don't think 1 billion dollars is a high barrier to entry.
You are also ignoring Apple. They have undoubtedly absorbed many of the anti-MS users that would have supported an alternative OS had they not been around.
My point is that both Linux and the Mac show the Windows is not a monopoly product. A monopoly implies that customers have only one choice. Consumers have at least three, and arguably many more.
As for Be, it is undoubtedly true that many vendors fear Microsoft's wrath. But that does not mean that consumers do not have a choice. You can order a Be CD for $100 and have it installed in a matter of hours. Consumers do have a choice. At worst, it is somewhat less convenient than it otherwise would be.
How can they "take it and bundle it?" If they buy you out, then you get make a profit and it encourages others to compete with MS. The other possibilty is they can make a competing product, but even MS cannot afford to compete with every product on the market.
In fact, I don't think they were. I believe that AT&T was a regulated monopoly, and as such was given priviledges that competitors would not have had. Plus all of the local phone services were government monopolies, so you would have needed help from Ma Bell to connect to anyone.
I have several objections to what you said, but I want to focus on your allegations about Microsoft. You claim that once a company gains sufficient market share, it acquires an almost omnipotent power over its customers, and they have no choice but to take whatever is dished out to them. This is patently false.
If you look at the history of the computer industry since the early 80's when MS first got control of the OS market, you see that they have *never* had a monopoly. In the early days, there were several versions of DOS. Later, there was OS/2 and Be. Now we have Linux. Whenever there are a large number of users dissatisfied with the status quo, an OS is built to fit those needs. Throughout that time, users were also free to buy Macs, NeXT machines, Suns, SGI's, etc.
This argument is particularly ludicrous in the PC market, because the barrier to entry is so low. As the Open Source movement has shown, software can be written by individuals in their spare time, with essentially no start-up capitol. Entire Operating Systems can be written by a few dozen people in the space of a few years. To obtain and keep an absolute monopoly on the PC market is impossible. There are simply too many people with PC's who have the potential to become competitors.
This brings us to one of Rand's central ideas, which I think is entirely valid: only government can grant a true monopoly in most markets. This is true in the computer industry. The only way Microsoft could ensure that no one could compete with it, would be if they could forcibly prevent anyone from writing a competing product. In a capitalist society, that requires the force of law. This is why it is dangerous for the government to get involved--ultimately only government can permanently stifle innovation.
Of your list, the only ones that I can see being a potential source of legitimate government intervention are lying in court, and the bogus error messages and lying about OS/2. (potential fraud suits)
The others are simply (admittedly ruthless) savvy business practices. As far as I can see, none of those practices violated anyone's rights, because no one has a right to a copy of Windows. Anyone who wants to can simply refuse to use their product, and they are then free of any of the problems you list above.
Now it is true that doing so would be a great inconvenience, but remember that the reason for that is that so many people use Windows. This tells me that someone must like it, at least more than the alternatives. So the reason Microsoft is able to do the things you list, is because they are able to offer something in return that is valuable to a great many people.
Now you may not believe that it is valuable, but that does not give you the right to restrict the deals made between Microsoft and other companies. And if no computer company will sell you a computer without Windows, that is their choice. If enough people want non-windows computers, someone will start selling them. Microsoft made Windows, and they have the right to set whatever terms they wish in selling it.
That does not mean that they are "the only competent software company on the face of the planet." I don't much like M$ products, and in fact, I avoid using them when possible. But many users have chosen to use it, and we should respect that choice.
There is nothing arbitrary about anti-trust. Those laws exist to prevent a corperate entity from gaining enough economic clout to damage the public good and the economy.
This is nonsense. The terms "public good" and "economy" are both too vague to be able to clearly define what constitutes "harm." Every action has dozens of consequences both good and bad. There is no way to tell if the net effect of a given action is beneficial to so amorphous an entity as "the public good."
Keep in mind that part of thge public good includes a strong and diverse economy with prices driven by supply and demand through competition.
And that is what we have. The price of Windows is driven by the fact that people are willing to pay for it. Microsoft has competed and been very successful. They still have at least one major competitor (Apple) and a number of minor ones (Sun, SGI, Linux, OS/2, etc.) IF Microsoft does not keep itrs customers happy, they will fall. It is only a matter of time. And in the meantime, anyone who really wants to is free to switch to another OS.
I guess I don't see the problem. You argue that the reason that Microsoft has a monopoly is that people are too lazy to shop around. But that indicates to me that it must not be too important to them, and it may even mean that they (gasp) prefer Windows. So if these users are happy, who are we to complain? There are enough users to keep Linux, MacOS, and other alternatives alive, and if users are as lazy as you suggest, that is their problem. Microsoft is not responsible for the character of its customers.
For those of us who do care, there are alternatives. Not just Linux, but if you want an easy-to-use OS, there is the MacOS, which I would argue is better in any case.
You are entirely right when you say that there should be a presumption against government involvement, and your post indicates to me that there isn't really a problem. Those who care can use another OS, and those who don't are responsible for the result.
Okay. You've said that twice. You've said nothing to actually back it up or show why it might be true. I can say the sky is green an infinite number of times; oh, look, it's still blue.
I suggest you study the history of Antitrust, and at the risk of revealing my biases, that you start with Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. I also suggest that you examine the law itself. The body of antitrust law is full of phrases like "Combinations in restraint of Trade," "Unfair Practices," "Predatory Pricing," "Attempt to Monopolize," etc. Each of these phrases can mean anything to anyone, and in fact if you examine the case law, the definitions have changed to fit the current bad guy. To take the "predatory pricing" phrise, for example, I can see no distinction that can be drawn between "fair" price competition and "predatory" competition.
Anti-trust law is over one hundred years old. The chances that it is arbitrary and vague are just about zero.
What about the tax code? It has been around for over fifty years, and there is not a lawyer alive who understands all of it. It is riddled with arbitrary, vague, and even contradictory rules. The fact that a law is old does not make it good.
Whether or not it is over-reaching is a matter of opinion, but I doubt it would have lasted this long if many people (and let's be honest, large corporations) thought that.
If you want honesty, I think you will agree that beating up on big corporations has been a good way for politicians to score political points for as long as they have existed. It is the David-and-Goliath instinct at work--we instinctively root for the little guy. A lot of people (you included, apperantly) believe that antitrust is a good way to keep those big corporations in check. That is in large part what keeps it popular. That says nothing about whether it is good or effective.
Also, let us not forget that just because you, Bill Gates, or anybody else doesn't like a law doesn't make it okay to break it.
I disagree. I have no moral qualms about breaking laws that I believe to be unjust. The fact that some Congressman says I should do something does not obligate me to do it.
As for IE, selling a product for less than it cost to manufacture in order to gain market share is called dumping, and it is illegal. Simple as that.
This says nothing about whether it is wrong. I don't think we should take the laws we have on faith, and assume that because some wise Senator passed a given law, it must be okay. Antitrust (and anti-dumping) laws are attrocious, and have historically been used by weaker competitors to win politically when they can't compete in the free market.
As I posted above, antitrust law is arbitrary, vague, and over-reaching. It gives the DOJ a blank check to prosecute anyone who is successful no matter what they do, and it should be repealed...
It isn't envy that causes a rich thief or con artist to be prosecuted.
Just who has Microsoft stolen from? Just how does creating a product that they give away for free count as theft? I suppose you could say that they stole the browser market from Netscape. However, Netscape does not own the browser market. If Navigator was a truly superior product, it will maintain its market share. I have used both Navigator and Explorer, and I don't think either is clearly better. I frankly don't see how Microsoft can be characterized as either a "theif" or a "con artist."
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Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world precisely because US companies are invested there.
So if the US companies pulled out, the bananas would suddenly turn into factories and internet connections? Haitian farmers sell their bananas to us because our evil multinational corporations pay the best prices. What is wrong with that?
As for "violence and bloodshed," you may very well be right, but if so the government should be prosecuting those corporations. Violence and bloodshed are not a part of a free market--rather it is an indication that the government is not doing its job.
As for our government knocking over the governments of other countries, you may be quite right about that. I am not too thrilled about our foriegn policy. But if this is the case, the fact remains that the problem with third world countries is the screwups of governments (theirs or ours) not a lack of access to technology or the exploitation of evil corporations. Sending them internet connections is not going to solve anything.
I think this presents a false choice between using technology for "profit and recreation" or for helping poor people. The history of technology tends to show that the two go hand in hand: what often stimulates new inventions is precisely the desire of the rich for new toys. They pay a high premius for having something new, and then as the technology is refined, the benefits are spread to everyone.
This "ethical technology" thing is a crock. The problem with third world countries is not that the big bad United States won't share their technology, it is that third world countries have economic and social systems that make a modern free-market economy unworkable. It is hard for businessmen to build factories or office buildings or internet connections when it is about to get nationalised by the government or destroyed in the next Civil War.
If a third-world country chose to implement an actual free-market economy, with low taxes, secure private property, and a stable currency, they would experience a great deal of economic growth. US investors could invest there without fear of the government taking their investment or making it worthless by devaluing the currency. Such a country could in 50 years be as rich as any nation is today.
I am all for helping the poor, but I think we should keep things in perspective. It is not the fault of the West that the third-world poor are poor. And simply building them internet connection, while a noble goal, is not going to solve the problem.
Until Apple offers an OS that doesn't crash, doesn't cost $$, is completely open, and runs on many platforms (x86, powerpc, alpha, sparc...), forget them.
If Apple continues with Darwin, this is exactly what you will have. It already doesn't crash, doesn't cost money, and partially open. It is written in a way that it can be easily ported to other platforms.
Remember though that they are a hardware company, so they are not going to give all their software for free, and they are not going to develop software for competing platforms. But this is true of any corporation, and you have to buy hardware from someone.
I had to use X for hours before I figured out that middle button is paste. And you don't have to do edit->copy, edit->paste on a Mac. You can do this with keyboard shortcuts which takes practically no time at all. As I am sure you are aware, Apple established the convention of using zxcv for the 4 most common operations, so you can invoke them by feel with one hand. And part of the problem with X is that this middle-button-paste is not documented at all. Nor is it terribly consistent. It works slightly differently differently in some applications than others. Nearly every Mac app I have seen supports the standard File and Edit menu commands with the standard key shortcuts. Linux simply does not have this level of consistency.
The other thing I find really annoying about X cut-and-paste is that the operations of selecting and copying are indistinuaishable. For example, if I want to paste a URL into Netscape, selecting the current URL blows away the new URL I just copied. It ought to be possible to select text without clobbering the contents of the clipboard. I also frequently want to use the contents of the clipboard several times, and I would like it to stay there until I am done with it. In X this means that I can't do any text selections (say in emacs) until I am done with the contents of the clipboard. The time I save with the middle-button click is more than taken up in going back to recopy something that got overwritten in the clipboard.
There are a *lot* of things like that in X. For all its improvements, the unix GUI's are still less intuitive, consistent, and useful than either Windows or the Mac OS. Linux is a kick-ass OS in technical terms, but it has a long way to go before I am willing to give up my Mac as my primary home computer.
Just my Mac partisan $.02
or maybe Im wrong. Can you change monitors on these things without too much hassle?
Not a chance. It is hard to replace the memory without breaking something. I am reasonably competent with changing computer components, and I have not taken my iMac apart at all--I'm afraid I'm gonna break something.
On the other hand, the iMac has one of the nicest 15" monitors I have seen. I don't know what the failure rate is, but you can get rock-solid images at 1024 X 768 resolution. I suspect that lemon monitors are rare.
I have an iMac, and although the CD has not broken, and I don't expect it to, it is still pretty cheap. You have to pull it out manually, and it is not mounted securely, and so it makes rather noisy rattling sounds.
My modem is also very> flaky.
The iMac is a sweet machine--fast processor, gorgeous monitor, great form factor-- but the CD-ROM and modem leave a lot to be desired.
This one is from Reason magazine. It has some political commentary as well, but I found it interesting. It is kind of old.
If you don't think this is true I will remind you of the Railroad barons that neccessitated the creation of antitrust laws in the first place.
The railroad gained their monopoly in part because they were given exclusive land grants at well below cost. No one could compete with them, because they could not afford to build the railroads without government help. Thus the railroad barons were *not* a failure of the free market. They were a result of government interference.
Let's just shoot Bill Gates and be done with it. These are software executives! How the hell can you caompare them to murderers? You are out of your mind.
This doesn't go nearly far enough. Windows sucks. Microsoft sucks. The government should simply nationalize all of Microsoft's assets and disband the company. It can place all Microsoft software and its source in the public domain.
After all, corporations are not persons and they have no rights.
Can't does not mean shouldn't. I think everyone here agrees that a business that hired only whites is a moron. The question is whether the government or anyone else has the right to dictate who he may or may not hire. If you believe in private property, then I would think that you would support someone's right to hire whomever they choose, whether they agree with the reasons or not.
Businesses are simply groups of people. If the people individually have rights to liberty and property, how can the group not have those rights?
Nor is the existence of the Act any news. MS's lawyers should have been keenly aware of it all along, and if MS didn't want to fall afoul of it, all they had to do was behave.
/.ers would like this, I think we can agree that Microsoft's OS success does not make it unethical for them to produce Windows products.
The problem is that what Microsoft is accused of is "combinations in restraint of trade." That is so vague and Microsoft has a large enough market share that pretty much anything they do can be interpreted as a "combination in restraint of trade." Thus about the only way Microsoft could have avoided this is if they had stopped developing new products, and made sure they never pissed anyone off. As much as many
I'm not an Objectivist, but I am familiar with her work, and you are mistaken:
it assumes that all businesses act honorably (by this I mean that they do not lie, cheat, or steal). Those that do, according to Objectivism, must fail because the people will not buy from a business which does these things.
Anyone who has any familiarity with Rand knows that the sole purpose of an Objectivist government is to prevent people (and organizations, which are groups of people) from violating the rights of others. Stealing does this. So does cheating and lying (which are forms of fraud.) If Microsoft were to order its employees to do these things, Rand would be the first to advocate their being brought to justice.
But I pose a question: what if the people do not know what M$ does? What if it is so clever at hiding these things, masking them in the jargon of a technology with whic depressingly few people are familiar, such that it can do whatever it wants and people who only think they know what's going on accept it.
This is where courts of law and evidence come in. If someone thinks that Microsoft has stolen someone else's code, for example, they can take MS to court to recover damages. I fully support that right.
This is not the issue here. Microsoft is in essence being sued for being too successful, and then using its success in one market to help it succeed in others. This does not qualify as "theft, lying, or cheating." It is called competition. Microsoft spent a lot of money to produce a (bloated and buggy, but nonetheless) very popular and useful product. It is not theft for them to set conditions on the use of this product, including giving discounts to dealers who sell only its product.
I find your lack of understanding of Rand's ideas amazing. You clearly did not take the time to understand even the basic principles of the philosophy you claim has a "fatal flaw." I suggest that before you post, you make sure you know what you are talking about.
You are right, Windows 98 and Sun are targeted at different markets. However, Sun and Windows NT are competing in the workstation market. Granted, that's not really what the discussion was about...
So, you're saying that the only operating system to challange Microsoft in many years has been written by thousands of people donating their time (recently estimated at a worth of close to a billion dollars) and the market entry threshold is *low?*
Actually, yes. That is a billion dollars for a complete OS and a bunch of programs for it. Microsoft spends a lot more than a billion dollars for R & D in a year. Apple spent $400 million for NeXT, which was just to prop up their OS. And in fact I suspect that there are many companies that would be willing to pay a lot more than a billion dollars for Linux's market share. So yes, I don't think 1 billion dollars is a high barrier to entry.
You are also ignoring Apple. They have undoubtedly absorbed many of the anti-MS users that would have supported an alternative OS had they not been around.
My point is that both Linux and the Mac show the Windows is not a monopoly product. A monopoly implies that customers have only one choice. Consumers have at least three, and arguably many more.
As for Be, it is undoubtedly true that many vendors fear Microsoft's wrath. But that does not mean that consumers do not have a choice. You can order a Be CD for $100 and have it installed in a matter of hours. Consumers do have a choice. At worst, it is somewhat less convenient than it otherwise would be.
How can they "take it and bundle it?" If they buy you out, then you get make a profit and it encourages others to compete with MS. The other possibilty is they can make a competing product, but even MS cannot afford to compete with every product on the market.
In fact, I don't think they were. I believe that AT&T was a regulated monopoly, and as such was given priviledges that competitors would not have had. Plus all of the local phone services were government monopolies, so you would have needed help from Ma Bell to connect to anyone.
I have several objections to what you said, but I want to focus on your allegations about Microsoft. You claim that once a company gains sufficient market share, it acquires an almost omnipotent power over its customers, and they have no choice but to take whatever is dished out to them. This is patently false.
If you look at the history of the computer industry since the early 80's when MS first got control of the OS market, you see that they have *never* had a monopoly. In the early days, there were several versions of DOS. Later, there was OS/2 and Be. Now we have Linux. Whenever there are a large number of users dissatisfied with the status quo, an OS is built to fit those needs. Throughout that time, users were also free to buy Macs, NeXT machines, Suns, SGI's, etc.
This argument is particularly ludicrous in the PC market, because the barrier to entry is so low. As the Open Source movement has shown, software can be written by individuals in their spare time, with essentially no start-up capitol. Entire Operating Systems can be written by a few dozen people in the space of a few years. To obtain and keep an absolute monopoly on the PC market is impossible. There are simply too many people with PC's who have the potential to become competitors.
This brings us to one of Rand's central ideas, which I think is entirely valid: only government can grant a true monopoly in most markets. This is true in the computer industry. The only way Microsoft could ensure that no one could compete with it, would be if they could forcibly prevent anyone from writing a competing product. In a capitalist society, that requires the force of law. This is why it is dangerous for the government to get involved--ultimately only government can permanently stifle innovation.
Of your list, the only ones that I can see being a potential source of legitimate government intervention are lying in court, and the bogus error messages and lying about OS/2. (potential fraud suits)
The others are simply (admittedly ruthless) savvy business practices. As far as I can see, none of those practices violated anyone's rights, because no one has a right to a copy of Windows. Anyone who wants to can simply refuse to use their product, and they are then free of any of the problems you list above.
Now it is true that doing so would be a great inconvenience, but remember that the reason for that is that so many people use Windows. This tells me that someone must like it, at least more than the alternatives. So the reason Microsoft is able to do the things you list, is because they are able to offer something in return that is valuable to a great many people.
Now you may not believe that it is valuable, but that does not give you the right to restrict the deals made between Microsoft and other companies. And if no computer company will sell you a computer without Windows, that is their choice. If enough people want non-windows computers, someone will start selling them. Microsoft made Windows, and they have the right to set whatever terms they wish in selling it.
That does not mean that they are "the only competent software company on the face of the planet." I don't much like M$ products, and in fact, I avoid using them when possible. But many users have chosen to use it, and we should respect that choice.
Get a Powerbook. That doesn't have Windoze on it.
There is nothing arbitrary about anti-trust. Those laws exist to prevent a corperate entity from gaining enough economic clout to damage the public good and the economy.
This is nonsense. The terms "public good" and "economy" are both too vague to be able to clearly define what constitutes "harm." Every action has dozens of consequences both good and bad. There is no way to tell if the net effect of a given action is beneficial to so amorphous an entity as "the public good."
Keep in mind that part of thge public good includes a strong and diverse economy with prices driven by supply and demand through competition.
And that is what we have. The price of Windows is driven by the fact that people are willing to pay for it. Microsoft has competed and been very successful. They still have at least one major competitor (Apple) and a number of minor ones (Sun, SGI, Linux, OS/2, etc.) IF Microsoft does not keep itrs customers happy, they will fall. It is only a matter of time. And in the meantime, anyone who really wants to is free to switch to another OS.
I guess I don't see the problem. You argue that the reason that Microsoft has a monopoly is that people are too lazy to shop around. But that indicates to me that it must not be too important to them, and it may even mean that they (gasp) prefer Windows. So if these users are happy, who are we to complain? There are enough users to keep Linux, MacOS, and other alternatives alive, and if users are as lazy as you suggest, that is their problem. Microsoft is not responsible for the character of its customers.
For those of us who do care, there are alternatives. Not just Linux, but if you want an easy-to-use OS, there is the MacOS, which I would argue is better in any case.
You are entirely right when you say that there should be a presumption against government involvement, and your post indicates to me that there isn't really a problem. Those who care can use another OS, and those who don't are responsible for the result.
Okay. You've said that twice. You've said nothing to actually back it up or show why it might be true. I can say the sky is green an infinite number of times; oh, look, it's still blue.
I suggest you study the history of Antitrust, and at the risk of revealing my biases, that you start with Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. I also suggest that you examine the law itself. The body of antitrust law is full of phrases like "Combinations in restraint of Trade," "Unfair Practices," "Predatory Pricing," "Attempt to Monopolize," etc. Each of these phrases can mean anything to anyone, and in fact if you examine the case law, the definitions have changed to fit the current bad guy. To take the "predatory pricing" phrise, for example, I can see no distinction that can be drawn between "fair" price competition and "predatory" competition.
Anti-trust law is over one hundred years old. The chances that it is arbitrary and vague are just about zero.
What about the tax code? It has been around for over fifty years, and there is not a lawyer alive who understands all of it. It is riddled with arbitrary, vague, and even contradictory rules. The fact that a law is old does not make it good.
Whether or not it is over-reaching is a matter of opinion, but I doubt it would have lasted this long if many people (and let's be honest, large corporations) thought that.
If you want honesty, I think you will agree that beating up on big corporations has been a good way for politicians to score political points for as long as they have existed. It is the David-and-Goliath instinct at work--we instinctively root for the little guy. A lot of people (you included, apperantly) believe that antitrust is a good way to keep those big corporations in check. That is in large part what keeps it popular. That says nothing about whether it is good or effective.
Also, let us not forget that just because you, Bill Gates, or anybody else doesn't like a law doesn't make it okay to break it.
I disagree. I have no moral qualms about breaking laws that I believe to be unjust. The fact that some Congressman says I should do something does not obligate me to do it.
As for IE, selling a product for less than it cost to manufacture in order to gain market share is called dumping, and it is illegal. Simple as that.
This says nothing about whether it is wrong. I don't think we should take the laws we have on faith, and assume that because some wise Senator passed a given law, it must be okay. Antitrust (and anti-dumping) laws are attrocious, and have historically been used by weaker competitors to win politically when they can't compete in the free market.
As I posted above, antitrust law is arbitrary, vague, and over-reaching. It gives the DOJ a blank check to prosecute anyone who is successful no matter what they do, and it should be repealed...
It isn't envy that causes a rich thief or con artist to be prosecuted.
Just who has Microsoft stolen from? Just how does creating a product that they give away for free count as theft? I suppose you could say that they stole the browser market from Netscape. However, Netscape does not own the browser market. If Navigator was a truly superior product, it will maintain its market share. I have used both Navigator and Explorer, and I don't think either is clearly better. I frankly don't see how Microsoft can be characterized as either a "theif" or a "con artist."