Wow, you found the ONE case where an Apple is cheapter!!! Congrats!!!
If you make enough Apple-directed requirements, you can justify purchasing an Apple over a car if you wanted to. I hope you feel good about your decision.
I will not be telling my developers to change a thing. Our server logs still show 90% of our sessions come from an IE 5.0+ browser, so I'm not tailoring or testing for Gecko. If it works under Gecko then fine, if not, then too bad.
IE is the standard, choose not to follow it at your own peril.
You/. readers complain about MICROSOFT being a monopoly and having crappy products, AOL makes Microsoft look like freaking NASA.
I do, however, see this marriage being perfect for these reasons:
1. AOL software is AWESOME for people who don't want to know ANYTHING about computers, while LINUX is for people who know EVERYTHING about computers. AOL will dumb-down Linux to make it the best OS for your granny to use.
2. LINUX is the king of open-source, Time-Warner is the king of suing everyone for copywright violations. Say goodbye to open-source!
3. The virus that is AOL currently only destroys your computer by overwrighting your networking componants with bastardized AOL IP stacks and sockets, but now installing AOL can completely highjack your O/S.
Any LINUX people actually happy about this need to stop cheering EVERYTHING Linux and start thinking for themselves for once./. readers are lemmings, and AOL is the cliff. Have a nice trip.
Oh PLEASE! The XBOX doesn't have ONE GAME that the PS2 has, so it SUCKS?
Remember PS2 launch titles?!?!? Tell me that they looked good. Seriously, I got a PS2 at launch and played it twice in the first 6 months because the games SUCKED. Until GT3 came out, the PS2 was a JOKE.
The GameCube has ONE good game, the rest are kiddie games.
The upcoming (1 month from now) games for the XBOX that I like are Wreckless, Morrowind, Project Ego and a few others. NOTHING coming soon on the Gamecube even interests me.
As a PS2 AND XBox owner, I have to say that the XBOX is a FAR superior system, and if a comparison of LAUNCH TITLES is any indication, the XBOX is by far the way to go.
If this box was made personally by Linus Torvolds and ran LINUX, you'd be lined up buying them and telling us how this is the best product ever.
When you stopped judging products by their own merits and started only looking at who brands them, you've lost all credibility. Think for yourselves for once. It's getting rather pathetic.
It's NOT an XBOX. It's a totally new product. And my XBOX is completely stable and very fast, so just because MS makes it I should hate it?
It's sad when people stop thinking and step in line behind other geeks just to look "Cool" at the geek conventions. MS bashing is all the rage, jump onboard!!!
If this box was made personally by Linus Torvolds and ran LINUX, you'd be lined up buying them and telling us how this is the best product ever.
When you stopped judging products by their own merits and started only looking at who brands them, you've lost all credibility. Think for yourselves for once. It's getting rather pathetic.
If the device announced was running LINUX you'd all be lining up saying "WOW!!! THIS IS THE COOLEST THING EVER!!!!".
/.'s credibility was shot about a year ago when Linux stopped being an alternate OS and became a religion. Now you people don't even think, which is sad.
Secondly, this is NOT an XBOX EXPANSION, it's an ENTIRELY NEW PRODUCT. MS already owns WebTV and some other "consumer" type products, so why is a melding of these things so OUTRAGEOUS to you?
Finally, my XBox has never had a blue screen of death. It runs great, VERY fast, very stable, so what are you complaining about?
When you people stopped taking things on their own merits and started ONLY looking at who makes it you lost all credibility.
Re:You /. people really like the word "monopoly"
on
Broadband Obstacles
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· Score: 0
First of all, most of the "Laws" that Microsoft broke only apply to you if you have the #1 market position. ALL of the pressure tactics they have ever used are FINE as long as you don't have a majority market share.
The speed limit in the US is 55MPh. Do you feel that everyone going 56MPh should be pulled over? Why don't the car manufacturers put a device in all cars that when the Speedometer hits 56MPh it calls the police who then mail you a ticket. Hey, that's the law, right? 56MPh is speeding and every time you go 56 you DESERVE a ticket.
Microsoft is driving 85MPH in a 55MPH zone filled with other drivers doing 90MPH, but since they are a shiny red Ferarri they get all the tickets. If you wanna start handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500, be my guest, but expect to see Oracle, CA, Ariba, SAP and about 100+ more companies fall apart too, you'd better not single out Microsoft.
Re:You /. people really like the word "monopoly"
on
Broadband Obstacles
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· Score: 0
I see your point, and, quite frankly, we share a LOT of the same views.
There NEEDS to be a standard for OS's, just like there is a standard for radio broadcasts, Telephone transmissions, Interstate highways, etc. Some governing body needs to set the baseline standard that all OS's need to be compatible with, and that will even the playing field.
As for Microsoft's behavior, PLEASE grow up! MS does the SAME THING that ALL big corporations do, which is compete FIERCELY to be #1. They are demonized for doing it successfully.
While MS shouldn't be the one to set the standard, NOT having a standard is FAR worse. That'll set us back 15 years! As a software developer, I want to write to one platform that is compatible with 99% of my target audience, and right now that is Windows. If you make me write for UNIX, BEOS, OSX, DOS, OS/2 and others just to get up to 60% of the market, I'll go out of business.
There needs to be an overall OS standard for us to author to. How far OS authors go in extending that is up to them, but until that happens, having Microsoft set the standard is preferable to a 10-way shootout like we had in 1985.
The government should be able to regulate SOME things, if they feel that laws are being broken, and law enforcement SHOULD be part of the government, so I do not see how you compare the two.
The ADA IS an unfair law. I'm sorry to say that much of the ADA is simply unfair to the employer. If I have 2 equally qualified employees and one of them requires $10K in modifications to my facility and the other one doesn't, I should be allowed to hire the other one. The interpretation of the ADA's rules on "reasonable accomodation" are so widely interpreted that it's rediculous. For one company it might be deemed that a $100 wheelchair ramp is not "reasonable" while another company has to install a $50K elevator. Employers should be able to hire the BEST person for the job, and any forced hiring ratios and penalties for not hiring a less-qualified worker are simply unfair. As a manager, I'd hire a baboon if they were qualified and within my budget, I don't care. The ADA was meant to prevent discrimination, ie the hiring of a less qualified person over a more qualified disabled person, but it was written so broadly that it wide open to gross misinterpretation.
Since we're on the subject of anti-business bullcrap, what is the difference between a labor union and organized crime? No, that's not a joke, I cannot tell the differnece! If the Unions didn't have a ton of lobbying power and MONEY, they would have ceased to exist once the mass media was developed. The Upton Sinclair "Jungle" days are long gone, and the unions exist now NOT to serve their members, but to serve themselves. A person on an assembly line in a Ford plant makes $18/hr to tighten a bolt that a robot can do for $1/hr, but Ford cannot replace the union worker! Furthermore that worker pays $3/hr+ in UNION DUES just so the union can extort Ford into abiding by union laws. And we wonder why US cars cannot compete on a world market. Imagine buying a Toyota for $5K LESS without the terriffs (imposed due to union lobbying) and what that would do to the US auto industry! The problem is you cannot protect the industry forever, and when the day comes where US cars are so drastically overpriced and inferior that the terriffs cannot make up the difference, we'll see a collapse of epic proportions. The government cannot prevent that, only postpone it. Just like how Unions are hurting the car industry by "protecting" it, the governments protection of inferior businesses isn't helpful in the long run.
OSHA. OSHA make sense, for businesses AND employees. OSHA isn't anti-business at all! In fact, by complying with OSHA, companies can prevent DISASTEROUS law suits, so OSHA doesn't really even need enforcement as long as OSHA complients is almost like a "Get out of jail free" card.
AT&T was subsidized by the federal government, period. Perhaps they needed to be, since the phone lines are a public utility just like Power Lines are, and there needs to some equity there. However, the government simply didn't draw the distinction between the SERVICE (the phone switching) and the UTILITY (the network of phone lines) so they subsidized the whole thing with AT&T. The government should have seen the phone lines like our highway system, a public utility, and the phone services, like AT&T, SPRINT, MCI, etc. as service providers that operate on those public utilities. Charge all phone companies the same usage fee to use the lines and let them fight for customers, which is what's happening today. That WOULD HAVE happened in the 70's or sooner if the Government didn't simply use AT&T as a whole as a public utility.
Basically, if AT&T provided the service and the government paid for the lines, we'd have had 5c long distance 15 - 20 years ago.
The figures came from the cost within our company. We have 10% of our engineers running LINUX on their systems, but they generate almost 35% of the help desk calls, so actually, from my experience, you can triple support costs.
Re:You /. people really like the word "monopoly"
on
Broadband Obstacles
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· Score: 0
Don't believe what you read. Microsoft's "Monopoly" (if you want to call it that) exists because the CONSUMER WANTS IT.
Why is LINUX a FREE o/s that you/.'ers think is the best thing since sliced bread, yet MS still has the lion's share?? Simple, OPERATING SYSTEMS ARE A NATURAL MONOPOLY.
It's like having competing broadcast "standards" for television. What if each TV station could choose from any of over 10 differant signal formats to broadcast in, and the consumer's TVs can only receive ONE, so they have to select what station they want to watch and buy a TV for it. That would be REDICULOUS!! MS exists because they created the DE FACTO standard, which GREATLY simplified computing for the whole world. Remember walking into a software store in 1985? You had 10 shelves of different software for 10 different OS's. THAT SUCKED!!! As a developer, I'm glad I ONLY have one OS to develop for, and as a consumer it's nice to know that MY OS can run 99% of the software on the market.
The Government should NOT penalize MS for becoming the standard. If the Government doesn't like it, they should form a panel with representatives from ALL the major software companies and come up with an "OS STANDARD" that ALL OS's should conform to (LINUX, Windows, OS/2, etc) so that any software author can write a package for ONE platform and it will work on ALL platforms, since they all must conform to the standard. That way, the most robust, feature rich OS will win the market.
Don't blame MS for playing by the rules and winning. Whether you know it (or like it) or not, they did what the Government (or some other regulating body, like ANSI) should have done a long time ago: developed an OS standard to prevent fragmentation of the market.
What if the national Highway system worked like the world YOU propose without Microsoft? You car will only drive on 15% of the roads. If you want to drive to California, you'll need a different car. Want to drive to the grocery store? Yet another car. Cars need roads that conform to a set of rules (width, grade, materials, common signals, etc.) or else you'll have chaos. Computers are the same way: without a common prevailing OS standard you'll only be able to run 10% of the apps on any given platform. That's simply rediculous.
Re:You /. people really like the word "monopoly"
on
Broadband Obstacles
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· Score: 0
EXACTLY! The Government should not CREATE monopolies either. Like I said, if the Government tries to force the skipping of steps, or prevent steps from occurring, then they destabalize the whole process. If a governemnt bails out an inefficient airline, are they REALLY doing us a favor in the long run? Do you REALLY think the auto manufacturers in the USA can compete EVEN DOMESTICALLY if there werent HUGE import terriffs on foreign autos? All that does is postpone the inevitable, and makes the impending collapse even more painful when it does happen.
Re:A monopoly by definition is not a free market
on
Broadband Obstacles
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· Score: 0
You are silly. If a company does something better than any other company and charges less, it DESERVES to become a monopoly. If a monopoly abuses its position by price gouging, other companies will be able to afford to enter the market and compete, or the consumer will find an alternative. Let the natural ebb and flow handle monopolies, NOT the government. The Government should NOT create OR destroy monopolies! If a Monopoly exists, it exists because the market conditions allowed it to exist. The government needs to fix the market conditions to foil monopolies if a monopoly is bad, but to break up a monopoly while leaving the market conditions in tact is like bailing out a sinking boat without plugging the hole first.
Re:You /. people really like the word "monopoly"
on
Broadband Obstacles
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· Score: 0
You miss the point.
When one competitor has a better product at better prices it WILL perform better than its competition. If the competition doesn't step up, the aforementioned company will become a monopoly. That much you seem to understand. Where you are missing the point is that a Monopoly, if it abuses its position, WILL be challenged and WILL fall, unless there are barriers to entry. Gasoline has the BIGGEST barrier to entry. The amount of money required to explore, discover, harvest, refine and distribute gasoline is IMMENSE, making it a HUGE barrier to entry for new competitors. Grocery stores, however, can create somewhat of a barrier through volume discounts, but if they try to price gouge, SOMEONE will step up and steal market share.
Is a monopoly that charges a fair price for its service a BAD thing?!? NOPE. It's the American way. If a monopoly charges too much for its product, SOMEONE will say "Hey, I can make money doing that" and will enter the market. Heck, the entire US PATENT SYSTEM creates monopolies on a daily basis! What you are speaking against is a monopoly that ABUSES its position by charging too much, but I'm telling you right now, unless the Government is propping up the monopoly or there is a huge natural barrier to entry, abusive monopolies WILL fail.
It's the GOAL and the RIGHT of every company to become a monopoly. When did making a profit become a BAD thing? Gouging consumers only works for a short while, then other companies smell blood and enter the market, so there is a natual counterbalance. If the Govenment steps in and ARTIFICIALLY tries to create this counterbalance, it's asking for trouble.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, you found the ONE case where an Apple is cheapter!!! Congrats!!!
If you make enough Apple-directed requirements, you can justify purchasing an Apple over a car if you wanted to. I hope you feel good about your decision.
Wow, Apple publications and the most liberal newspaper in the world are cheering Apple's new OS.... BIG freaking surprise!!!
That's as dumb as posting glowing reviews of Windows XP coming from microsoft.com and msnbc.com!!!
I'm glad Slashdot doesn't even claim to report "News".
I will not be telling my developers to change a thing. Our server logs still show 90% of our sessions come from an IE 5.0+ browser, so I'm not tailoring or testing for Gecko. If it works under Gecko then fine, if not, then too bad.
IE is the standard, choose not to follow it at your own peril.
How is MS FORCING DELL to sell their OS??
Gun to the head?
Buyout threats?
No, they are threating to NOT give them a discount if they don't sell only MS systems.
It's called a reciporacal agreement, and they have been used for 1000's of years in business. Grow up you Linux bigots.
I think someone forgot to inform the rest of the universe......
I mean, we hate the XBOX because it's too much like a PC, so shouldn't we now hate the PS2 because it IS a pc now?
Without Slashdot to tell us what to think, we are floundering here.
Oh, wait, I think I get it: Since Microsoft doesn't make it, this is good news!!! YAY!!!!
I'll still wait for Slashdot to tell me how to react, because I don't want to break from the rest of you and start thinking for myself.
You bashed the XBOX, calling it a PC, so come on and bash the PS2!!! If the XBOX is a PC, what does this make the PS2?
Time to that you're fair and not just ignorant bigots. Start bashing the PS2!!!
You /. readers complain about MICROSOFT being a monopoly and having crappy products, AOL makes Microsoft look like freaking NASA.
/. readers are lemmings, and AOL is the cliff. Have a nice trip.
I do, however, see this marriage being perfect for these reasons:
1. AOL software is AWESOME for people who don't want to know ANYTHING about computers, while LINUX is for people who know EVERYTHING about computers. AOL will dumb-down Linux to make it the best OS for your granny to use.
2. LINUX is the king of open-source, Time-Warner is the king of suing everyone for copywright violations. Say goodbye to open-source!
3. The virus that is AOL currently only destroys your computer by overwrighting your networking componants with bastardized AOL IP stacks and sockets, but now installing AOL can completely highjack your O/S.
Any LINUX people actually happy about this need to stop cheering EVERYTHING Linux and start thinking for themselves for once.
Microsoft decides to focus more on security, which is the main complaint you /. folks have, yet you still find ways to bitch about it. How sad.
Oh PLEASE! The XBOX doesn't have ONE GAME that the PS2 has, so it SUCKS?
Remember PS2 launch titles?!?!? Tell me that they looked good. Seriously, I got a PS2 at launch and played it twice in the first 6 months because the games SUCKED. Until GT3 came out, the PS2 was a JOKE.
The GameCube has ONE good game, the rest are kiddie games.
The upcoming (1 month from now) games for the XBOX that I like are Wreckless, Morrowind, Project Ego and a few others. NOTHING coming soon on the Gamecube even interests me.
As a PS2 AND XBox owner, I have to say that the XBOX is a FAR superior system, and if a comparison of LAUNCH TITLES is any indication, the XBOX is by far the way to go.
Another kid whose Mommy couldn't afford to buy him an XBOX for Christmas. Thanks for conveying in words the taste of sour grapes!
Lack of 3rd party support? Gee, the ONLY 3rd party NOT announcing support is NINTENDO. Get a clue.
If this box was made personally by Linus Torvolds and ran LINUX, you'd be lined up buying them and telling us how this is the best product ever.
When you stopped judging products by their own merits and started only looking at who brands them, you've lost all credibility. Think for yourselves for once. It's getting rather pathetic.
It's NOT an XBOX. It's a totally new product. And my XBOX is completely stable and very fast, so just because MS makes it I should hate it?
It's sad when people stop thinking and step in line behind other geeks just to look "Cool" at the geek conventions. MS bashing is all the rage, jump onboard!!!
If this box was made personally by Linus Torvolds and ran LINUX, you'd be lined up buying them and telling us how this is the best product ever.
When you stopped judging products by their own merits and started only looking at who brands them, you've lost all credibility. Think for yourselves for once. It's getting rather pathetic.
Awwwww, someone's mommy couldn't afford to buy him an XBOX for Christmas. My heart bleeds for you.
If the device announced was running LINUX you'd all be lining up saying "WOW!!! THIS IS THE COOLEST THING EVER!!!!".
/.'s credibility was shot about a year ago when Linux stopped being an alternate OS and became a religion. Now you people don't even think, which is sad.
Secondly, this is NOT an XBOX EXPANSION, it's an ENTIRELY NEW PRODUCT. MS already owns WebTV and some other "consumer" type products, so why is a melding of these things so OUTRAGEOUS to you?
Finally, my XBox has never had a blue screen of death. It runs great, VERY fast, very stable, so what are you complaining about?
When you people stopped taking things on their own merits and started ONLY looking at who makes it you lost all credibility.
First of all, most of the "Laws" that Microsoft broke only apply to you if you have the #1 market position. ALL of the pressure tactics they have ever used are FINE as long as you don't have a majority market share.
The speed limit in the US is 55MPh. Do you feel that everyone going 56MPh should be pulled over? Why don't the car manufacturers put a device in all cars that when the Speedometer hits 56MPh it calls the police who then mail you a ticket. Hey, that's the law, right? 56MPh is speeding and every time you go 56 you DESERVE a ticket.
Microsoft is driving 85MPH in a 55MPH zone filled with other drivers doing 90MPH, but since they are a shiny red Ferarri they get all the tickets. If you wanna start handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500, be my guest, but expect to see Oracle, CA, Ariba, SAP and about 100+ more companies fall apart too, you'd better not single out Microsoft.
I see your point, and, quite frankly, we share a LOT of the same views.
There NEEDS to be a standard for OS's, just like there is a standard for radio broadcasts, Telephone transmissions, Interstate highways, etc. Some governing body needs to set the baseline standard that all OS's need to be compatible with, and that will even the playing field.
As for Microsoft's behavior, PLEASE grow up! MS does the SAME THING that ALL big corporations do, which is compete FIERCELY to be #1. They are demonized for doing it successfully.
While MS shouldn't be the one to set the standard, NOT having a standard is FAR worse. That'll set us back 15 years! As a software developer, I want to write to one platform that is compatible with 99% of my target audience, and right now that is Windows. If you make me write for UNIX, BEOS, OSX, DOS, OS/2 and others just to get up to 60% of the market, I'll go out of business.
There needs to be an overall OS standard for us to author to. How far OS authors go in extending that is up to them, but until that happens, having Microsoft set the standard is preferable to a 10-way shootout like we had in 1985.
The government should be able to regulate SOME things, if they feel that laws are being broken, and law enforcement SHOULD be part of the government, so I do not see how you compare the two.
The ADA IS an unfair law. I'm sorry to say that much of the ADA is simply unfair to the employer. If I have 2 equally qualified employees and one of them requires $10K in modifications to my facility and the other one doesn't, I should be allowed to hire the other one. The interpretation of the ADA's rules on "reasonable accomodation" are so widely interpreted that it's rediculous. For one company it might be deemed that a $100 wheelchair ramp is not "reasonable" while another company has to install a $50K elevator. Employers should be able to hire the BEST person for the job, and any forced hiring ratios and penalties for not hiring a less-qualified worker are simply unfair. As a manager, I'd hire a baboon if they were qualified and within my budget, I don't care. The ADA was meant to prevent discrimination, ie the hiring of a less qualified person over a more qualified disabled person, but it was written so broadly that it wide open to gross misinterpretation.
Since we're on the subject of anti-business bullcrap, what is the difference between a labor union and organized crime? No, that's not a joke, I cannot tell the differnece! If the Unions didn't have a ton of lobbying power and MONEY, they would have ceased to exist once the mass media was developed. The Upton Sinclair "Jungle" days are long gone, and the unions exist now NOT to serve their members, but to serve themselves. A person on an assembly line in a Ford plant makes $18/hr to tighten a bolt that a robot can do for $1/hr, but Ford cannot replace the union worker! Furthermore that worker pays $3/hr+ in UNION DUES just so the union can extort Ford into abiding by union laws. And we wonder why US cars cannot compete on a world market. Imagine buying a Toyota for $5K LESS without the terriffs (imposed due to union lobbying) and what that would do to the US auto industry! The problem is you cannot protect the industry forever, and when the day comes where US cars are so drastically overpriced and inferior that the terriffs cannot make up the difference, we'll see a collapse of epic proportions. The government cannot prevent that, only postpone it. Just like how Unions are hurting the car industry by "protecting" it, the governments protection of inferior businesses isn't helpful in the long run.
OSHA. OSHA make sense, for businesses AND employees. OSHA isn't anti-business at all! In fact, by complying with OSHA, companies can prevent DISASTEROUS law suits, so OSHA doesn't really even need enforcement as long as OSHA complients is almost like a "Get out of jail free" card.
AT&T was subsidized by the federal government, period. Perhaps they needed to be, since the phone lines are a public utility just like Power Lines are, and there needs to some equity there. However, the government simply didn't draw the distinction between the SERVICE (the phone switching) and the UTILITY (the network of phone lines) so they subsidized the whole thing with AT&T. The government should have seen the phone lines like our highway system, a public utility, and the phone services, like AT&T, SPRINT, MCI, etc. as service providers that operate on those public utilities. Charge all phone companies the same usage fee to use the lines and let them fight for customers, which is what's happening today. That WOULD HAVE happened in the 70's or sooner if the Government didn't simply use AT&T as a whole as a public utility.
Basically, if AT&T provided the service and the government paid for the lines, we'd have had 5c long distance 15 - 20 years ago.
The figures came from the cost within our company. We have 10% of our engineers running LINUX on their systems, but they generate almost 35% of the help desk calls, so actually, from my experience, you can triple support costs.
Don't believe what you read. Microsoft's "Monopoly" (if you want to call it that) exists because the CONSUMER WANTS IT.
/.'ers think is the best thing since sliced bread, yet MS still has the lion's share?? Simple, OPERATING SYSTEMS ARE A NATURAL MONOPOLY.
Why is LINUX a FREE o/s that you
It's like having competing broadcast "standards" for television. What if each TV station could choose from any of over 10 differant signal formats to broadcast in, and the consumer's TVs can only receive ONE, so they have to select what station they want to watch and buy a TV for it. That would be REDICULOUS!! MS exists because they created the DE FACTO standard, which GREATLY simplified computing for the whole world. Remember walking into a software store in 1985? You had 10 shelves of different software for 10 different OS's. THAT SUCKED!!! As a developer, I'm glad I ONLY have one OS to develop for, and as a consumer it's nice to know that MY OS can run 99% of the software on the market.
The Government should NOT penalize MS for becoming the standard. If the Government doesn't like it, they should form a panel with representatives from ALL the major software companies and come up with an "OS STANDARD" that ALL OS's should conform to (LINUX, Windows, OS/2, etc) so that any software author can write a package for ONE platform and it will work on ALL platforms, since they all must conform to the standard. That way, the most robust, feature rich OS will win the market.
Don't blame MS for playing by the rules and winning. Whether you know it (or like it) or not, they did what the Government (or some other regulating body, like ANSI) should have done a long time ago: developed an OS standard to prevent fragmentation of the market.
What if the national Highway system worked like the world YOU propose without Microsoft? You car will only drive on 15% of the roads. If you want to drive to California, you'll need a different car. Want to drive to the grocery store? Yet another car. Cars need roads that conform to a set of rules (width, grade, materials, common signals, etc.) or else you'll have chaos. Computers are the same way: without a common prevailing OS standard you'll only be able to run 10% of the apps on any given platform. That's simply rediculous.
EXACTLY! The Government should not CREATE monopolies either. Like I said, if the Government tries to force the skipping of steps, or prevent steps from occurring, then they destabalize the whole process. If a governemnt bails out an inefficient airline, are they REALLY doing us a favor in the long run? Do you REALLY think the auto manufacturers in the USA can compete EVEN DOMESTICALLY if there werent HUGE import terriffs on foreign autos? All that does is postpone the inevitable, and makes the impending collapse even more painful when it does happen.
You are silly. If a company does something better than any other company and charges less, it DESERVES to become a monopoly. If a monopoly abuses its position by price gouging, other companies will be able to afford to enter the market and compete, or the consumer will find an alternative. Let the natural ebb and flow handle monopolies, NOT the government. The Government should NOT create OR destroy monopolies! If a Monopoly exists, it exists because the market conditions allowed it to exist. The government needs to fix the market conditions to foil monopolies if a monopoly is bad, but to break up a monopoly while leaving the market conditions in tact is like bailing out a sinking boat without plugging the hole first.
You miss the point.
When one competitor has a better product at better prices it WILL perform better than its competition. If the competition doesn't step up, the aforementioned company will become a monopoly. That much you seem to understand. Where you are missing the point is that a Monopoly, if it abuses its position, WILL be challenged and WILL fall, unless there are barriers to entry. Gasoline has the BIGGEST barrier to entry. The amount of money required to explore, discover, harvest, refine and distribute gasoline is IMMENSE, making it a HUGE barrier to entry for new competitors. Grocery stores, however, can create somewhat of a barrier through volume discounts, but if they try to price gouge, SOMEONE will step up and steal market share.
Is a monopoly that charges a fair price for its service a BAD thing?!? NOPE. It's the American way. If a monopoly charges too much for its product, SOMEONE will say "Hey, I can make money doing that" and will enter the market. Heck, the entire US PATENT SYSTEM creates monopolies on a daily basis! What you are speaking against is a monopoly that ABUSES its position by charging too much, but I'm telling you right now, unless the Government is propping up the monopoly or there is a huge natural barrier to entry, abusive monopolies WILL fail.
It's the GOAL and the RIGHT of every company to become a monopoly. When did making a profit become a BAD thing? Gouging consumers only works for a short while, then other companies smell blood and enter the market, so there is a natual counterbalance. If the Govenment steps in and ARTIFICIALLY tries to create this counterbalance, it's asking for trouble.