Actually, that's an excellent question, and one that generally everyone avoids. Ultimately, software makers can price their wares more or less however they like precisely because of that.
A whole lot of it depends on whether the company has a near-monopoly position to begin with. Looking at it strictly from a legal standpoint, Linux (if Linux was a single entity) could get away with giving away their product because they have such a tiny market share. If, however, Microsoft started mailing out copies of Windows like AOL disks, that would be an abuse.
But besides an extreme case like that, I'm not aware of anyone ever really making arguments about price-gouging in software. Even in Microsoft's case, they get attacked for their anticompetitive contracts with vendors rather than their prices.
Well, since you say if you price your product below cost you can be accused of predatory pricing, the memory makers price fixing would be predatory price fixing since they were all still losing $$$ hand over fist even with this supposed price fixing.
Um... How can it be "predatory" if everyone is engaging in the practice? By definition, predators require prey.
Anyway, I was responding with general arguments against the equally general arguments of the parent. I didn't mention the specific RAM case once. What it boils down to is three realistic choices:
A - As accused, the major RAM manufacturers all conspired to artificially *inflate* prices. Which in turn means they were, in fact, NOT selling below cost. (and would have to be selling substantially above cost) This would be illegal.
B - They were selling above costs, but never conspired together to set a selling price. This is legal, and the Market working.
C - They were in fact all selling below cost, apparently driven there by market pressures. In which case a whole lot of people were about to go out of business, and nothing illegal occured. The Market is still working. (as companies going out of business would cause the prices to rise until they hit a point of profitabiliy again)
Option D, they all conspired to sell their products below cost, simply has no basis in reality. Corporations don't commit mass suicide or agree to jointly lose money.
Otherwise, I don't know which of scenarios A-C is true, as I'm not in possession of all the facts of the case.
Which was, in turn, also because of Microsoft's restrictive contracts. I don't know how familiar you are with the BeOS saga, but towards the end of its life, they were offering to give away licenses for it to any OEM willing to bundle it on their computers. And most OEMs were going to take them up on the offer, until Microsoft showed up to point out certain details in their Windows licensing contracts.
If BeOS had been allowed to be bundled on thousands or millions of home computers, there would have been application support.
Actually, from what I've read, the X-Box is the only console which is being sold significantly below cost. The PS2 and Gamecube are sold at approximately cost. (at least were originally; I honestly don't know if the current lower prices are still at cost. However, as they've been on the market for a couple years, part prices have gone down and manufacturing has become streamlined, it's not unreasonable to assume.)
There are, otherwise, two issues at play. First of all is that the X-Box is being kicked around in the market like David Beckham's favorite ball. I suspect some industry people were watching it VERY closely to see if Microsoft's ploy was working. It's not. Even selling below cost, the X-Box is STILL overpriced and not very competitive. MS is losing billions on it and no one is weeping.
The OTHER issue is that consoles aren't stand-alone things. Much of the profit is made through the manufacturing and licensing of games for them, which sort of exempts them from price-fixing arguments. It's a case of giving away the razor and gouging on the blades, which is a time-honored marketing concept.
And we also have, in that case, historical precedent. Video games have cost roughly $30-$50 for 20+ years now. It's not price-fixing if you're selling at the established market price.
So, in short, it's not anticompetitive to lose money on Widget A, if Widget A depends on profitable Widget B to be useful.
(this is also, incidentally, why Microsoft is so rabid about prosecuting X-Box hackers, while Sony and Nintendo don't care nearly so much. Sony and Nintendo aren't losing money on their console sales. (we think) Microsoft, however, provably loses a couple hundred dollars whenever someone buys an X-Box and then doesn't buy any games. So people buying X-Boxen to turn it into a spare Linux machine or firewall or something are a direct threat to Microsoft's profits.)
Well, that brings up the larger issue of whether 'no harm, no foul' is a valid legal concept. And we've been wrangling over that one for millenia.
The alternative point of view would be to say, at the time they (allegedly) did this, they obviously felt that this illegal act would bring them higher profits. That the market would shift to deny them their profits could not be forseen. So at the time, it was an illegal act with the intention of garnering ill-gotten gains. (allegedly)
While I can see your position, from a larger societal standpoint, I can't support only prosecuting cases of illegal acts in the event that they succeed. Taking that standpoint would, in some ways, encourage illegal (AKA antisocial) actions, since the odds of being caught and punished suddenly go down.
If you set a price lower than your competitor, you can be accused of "predatory pricing"
If you price your product BELOW COST, you can be accused of predatory pricing. Without this rule, no small manufacturer could ever reasonable compete against an established one. The one with the large market share would simply undercut the competition by selling at a loss and ride on its existing resources until the competition went under.
If you set a price higer than a competitor, it is used as evidence of an "abusive monopoly position"
Only if coupled with other factors, such as anti-competitive \ exclusive contracts with related parties. Case in point, Microsoft's contracts with computer OEMs preventing them from bundling other OSes on the same computer as Windows. BeOS - overall, a superior product - went under because of precisely this. They had no chance to compete and prove themselves on an open market because of Microsoft's restrictive contracts. (which, in turn, no OEM would break because of Microsoft's ownership of the home market)
If you set the same price as a competitor, it is evidence of "price fixing"
CAN be, but only very rarely. As was pointed out in another post above, price-fixing \ cartel cases are spectacularly difficult to prove and usually require a "smoking gun" as evidence. The government even launching such a case is itself evidence that they have a load of proof on their side. Otherwise, it's assumed to be the result of normal market pressures. (why, for example, all the major computer brands cost about the same - prices have trended downwards since the 80s until it's hit a point that it's extremely difficult to get any cheaper and still profit. That's not price-fixing, it's the Free Market actually working as it's supposed to.)
Keep in mind I am NOT saying what he did was terrorism, I am just asking, if this affected 21,000 computers instead of 21 would we still feel it wasn't terrorism?
This is why the government is supposed to exercise good fricking judgement in the prosecution of cases. OF COURSE if it was a deliberate attempt to disable 911 through thousands of prank calls, that would qualify as terrorism. There are degrees of scale here, and also of intent.
That's sort of like saying, if it's not terrorism to blow up a small firecracker in a men's room, then it shouldn't be terrorism to blow up a large load of TNT.
This is one of the things that truly scares me about our country at the moment. We have an Attorney General who has directed state prosecutors to always seek the maximum sentence possible, and to never plea-bargain unless it's a case where the person is rolling over to indict someone bigger than him. The Justice department is trying to make laws into absolute things - no sense of jurisprudence, no making the punishment fit the crime. Just, these are the laws, and THEIR rule is absolute, with no possibility of human compassion or understanding entering into the system. Don't bother trying to rehabilitate or teach a social lesson, just lock up anyone who transgresses.
In the long run, an attitude like that will always lead to absolutism, and therefore, authoritarianism. This progression has been followed in pretty much every applicable case in history. It's just started leaning that way in America, and it's far from the point of no return. But it's still something we have to watch, and have to fight against, lest the problem grow.
You are aware, are you not, that America's body of tort law is so massively complex that, in the end, it's difficult for any citizen, no matter how law-abiding, to go a week without breaking SOME law?
Laws are not an end unto themselves. They do not dictate morality. They are a tool, weilded in an attempt to keep society functioning. Often they intersect with morality, as it's usually defined, but not always. And to simply say "it's wrong to break a law, you deserve the consequences" is to invite abuse.
For the legal system to work in a free country, the authorities have to exercise proper jurisprudence in what cases to try, and when a person does or does not deserve to have the proverbial book thrown at him. To prosecute every single case using only the most extreme punishments is to invite governmental persecution.
What the guy did was stupid, and illegal. Of this there is no doubt. But TERRORISM? Not a chance. There are laws against prank-calling 911. There are laws against hacking. There are a dozen choices the authorities have in how to try him. Why are you defending their choice to prosecute him in the most zealous manner possible, when the exact same message ("Don't do something this stupid again,") could be imparted upon him through fining or a short jail term? Instead, we have someone who's presumably a good enough citizen who's looking to go up the river for most of the remainder of his productive life over a single, admittedly stupid, prank.
Right, but as the article pointed out, most people believe they work. Or push them anyway, trusting in the faeries to change the light.:-)
And as far as too much time and money, that's probably true too. There can be multiple reasons behind this, they just combine to reach the same conclusion.
Heh. Well, in my time spent in NYC, I never saw much evidence of it. But it's probably a good thing if the government doesn't *encourage* people to run across busy streets.:-)
This hardly seems like news of any sort. The article contained (through inference) the entire reason for their continued existance - there are still intersections that rely on them.
Computer-controlled traffic lights work a lot better than the old-fashioned timed system. (well, unless the detector screws up, but that's rare) So allowing people to interrupt the sequence would do little good. At the same time, you don't want people standing on one of those 700 crosswalks which will never volunteer a "walk" sign for ages.
So, to make sure that the people use the button in the places they need to, it's easier to leave the buttons on all the intersections. Otherwise, people might not think to use the button when it's necessary, at least not without a lot of time and prompting.
Well, that's the problem. Mp3.com, by being the first to do this, had the lion's share of the market. Once it got bought out (and ignored), it completely splintered the "industry." So there are a whole lot of little upstarts doing variations on the model, but all of them are so tiny as to present no real threat to the Big 5 at all.
From a pure strategic standpoint, the move was brilliant. One large cash layout, and your only major competition is crushed, divided, and made irrelevant. From every OTHER standpoint, it was abhorrant. (especially in effectively stalling out any consumer-driven progression in the music industry for years)
My personal favorite alternative (which I have no problem plugging) is Magnatune. You're free to listen to the entirety of their collection via streaming MP3, your licensed with permission to share the files, and prices are negotiable. If you want to buy an album, you can select how much you pay from $1-$20, based on what you think the album is worth.
It's a truly ambitious model, and amazingly, they seem to be doing OK so far on the small scale. But can they move out of a 'niche' market? I doubt it.
Except perhaps by being too successful. Remember, at the same time that Napster was grabbing headlines, MP3.com was the legitimate face of the online music biz. They were saying everything that the RIAA didn't want anyone to say, and worse, they were making money at it. (not to mention providing a highly attractive alternative to traditional record contracts) Contracted composers like those hired to do video games found it to be a perfect outlet for releasing music that had an audience, but wouldn't rate an actual CD release. Major groups were even releasing singles on MP3.com and profitting greatly from it.
Then they got bought out by Vivendi-Universal, and suddenly dropped completely off of the radar, only to be quietly shut down once they were forgotten.
Another ex-Streamer here. (Dallas) Got laid off last April, shortly before the Trinity site went away.
I actually have nothing whatsoever to contribute to this discussion (didn't the article say it ALL?) but figured I might as well chime in with the other alum.
I actually lasted 2 years, and only got fired because the entire center was going the way of the Titanic. I look back on it fondly, actually. One I learned the ropes, I discovered I could do pretty much anything so long as my AHT was low. So you could find me kicked back with my feet on the desk, Fark on the brower, a couple AIM convos going, with Pink Floyd playing. Hard to knock getting paid to surf.
And the nice part was that I wasn't an evil tech. I was actually good enough that I could do my job AND deliver a call time well under the required. Which ensured that I never, ever got bothered for anything I did in my cube. Hell, I probably could've come to work naked and no one would've risked making me mad.
His entire point was that, if you asked oceanologists or biologists in the 60s about the possibility of life at the bottom of oceanic abyssal trenches, they would have given the exact same arguments about why it was impossible. Just replace "sulfuric acid" with "near-boiling temperatures" or "2,500 PSI of pressure" and you'd be similarly laughed at for suggesting life.
The discovery and study of extremophiles has actually been a huge boon to those advancing theories of life on other worlds. The range of life on Earth is mind-boggling, with many organisms and animals which are at least as "alien" as anything that might be found on Venus or Jupiter or whereever. The basic point being, if they can go into places on Earth where life absolutely, positively, could not possibly be, and find life anyway, it suddenly becomes hard to summarily rule out ANY location.
I have to ask, have you heard the radio series? (or seen the TV production) Zaphod's never had a British accent per se. The performance of him has always sounded sort of like a Brit attempting to put on a California accent.
That being said, Rockwell can do a lot of different voices, and I have little doubt he could do British if that was the direction they went with the character. Although I hope not.
So in your scheme, the FM dial would resemble the CB bands? No regulation to keep chanels from overlapping; huge amounts of the dial pure gibberish due to conflicting signals, and ultimately, whoever can afford the biggest transmitter "wins"?
The original reason for the creation of the FCC was the recognition that the airwaves are a limited resource. No regulations on who can use what frequences at what power would have made it a "free speech" situation analogous to attempting to be heard in a noisy room. You're free to speak, for sure, but no one's going to hear you.
If you're trying to tear down the FCC, you're jousting at windmills. If you have issue with the WAY that the FCC handles licenses, then that's another issue - and one which it would be quite productive to lobby on.
Why is it that whenever neurologists discover some section of the brain or chemical that causes physiological condition X to come about, they seem to automatically assume that they have found the actual CAUSE of Condition X?
Maybe I'm just silly, but I can't so blindly accept that brain in such an easily-mapped organic machine.
BTW, AT&T will be providing VoIP. They don't say how cheap it will be yet, but they are saying it will be cheaper than POTS. See here:
http://www.consumer.att.com/voip/
Wonderful! THAT is the sort of competition that we need more of. Not "deregulating" established industries which are already hopelessly tilted in favor of the established powers, but in totally new applications and areas of development where quality and innovation really CAN be the driving force.
As for the rest, my roommate got hit with a $500 bill for a couple hours of phone time to Russia. It was out in the boonies somewhere, not in one of the cities, which is probably why. But it can swing both ways. (and he had no idea the rate would be like that; was totally stunned by the bill)
But the question remains, when we can transmit ANY OTHER form of data over the Internet for only the cost of our local connection, why in the world are we paying extra for Voice service at all? No matter the cents per minute, that's still easily more expensive than a flat $40/mo for a broadband hookup.
BTW, you wouldn't happen to work for AT&T, would you?
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A whole lot of it depends on whether the company has a near-monopoly position to begin with. Looking at it strictly from a legal standpoint, Linux (if Linux was a single entity) could get away with giving away their product because they have such a tiny market share. If, however, Microsoft started mailing out copies of Windows like AOL disks, that would be an abuse.
But besides an extreme case like that, I'm not aware of anyone ever really making arguments about price-gouging in software. Even in Microsoft's case, they get attacked for their anticompetitive contracts with vendors rather than their prices.
Um... How can it be "predatory" if everyone is engaging in the practice? By definition, predators require prey.
Anyway, I was responding with general arguments against the equally general arguments of the parent. I didn't mention the specific RAM case once. What it boils down to is three realistic choices:
A - As accused, the major RAM manufacturers all conspired to artificially *inflate* prices. Which in turn means they were, in fact, NOT selling below cost. (and would have to be selling substantially above cost) This would be illegal.
B - They were selling above costs, but never conspired together to set a selling price. This is legal, and the Market working.
C - They were in fact all selling below cost, apparently driven there by market pressures. In which case a whole lot of people were about to go out of business, and nothing illegal occured. The Market is still working. (as companies going out of business would cause the prices to rise until they hit a point of profitabiliy again)
Option D, they all conspired to sell their products below cost, simply has no basis in reality. Corporations don't commit mass suicide or agree to jointly lose money.
Otherwise, I don't know which of scenarios A-C is true, as I'm not in possession of all the facts of the case.
That's an excellent point, and if someone were to propose a law defining Attempted Price-Fixing, I'd happily support it.
If BeOS had been allowed to be bundled on thousands or millions of home computers, there would have been application support.
Ok, I coulda sworn I had more paragraph breaks in there. Sorry about the formatting.
There are, otherwise, two issues at play. First of all is that the X-Box is being kicked around in the market like David Beckham's favorite ball. I suspect some industry people were watching it VERY closely to see if Microsoft's ploy was working. It's not. Even selling below cost, the X-Box is STILL overpriced and not very competitive. MS is losing billions on it and no one is weeping.
The OTHER issue is that consoles aren't stand-alone things. Much of the profit is made through the manufacturing and licensing of games for them, which sort of exempts them from price-fixing arguments. It's a case of giving away the razor and gouging on the blades, which is a time-honored marketing concept.
And we also have, in that case, historical precedent. Video games have cost roughly $30-$50 for 20+ years now. It's not price-fixing if you're selling at the established market price.
So, in short, it's not anticompetitive to lose money on Widget A, if Widget A depends on profitable Widget B to be useful.
(this is also, incidentally, why Microsoft is so rabid about prosecuting X-Box hackers, while Sony and Nintendo don't care nearly so much. Sony and Nintendo aren't losing money on their console sales. (we think) Microsoft, however, provably loses a couple hundred dollars whenever someone buys an X-Box and then doesn't buy any games. So people buying X-Boxen to turn it into a spare Linux machine or firewall or something are a direct threat to Microsoft's profits.)
The alternative point of view would be to say, at the time they (allegedly) did this, they obviously felt that this illegal act would bring them higher profits. That the market would shift to deny them their profits could not be forseen. So at the time, it was an illegal act with the intention of garnering ill-gotten gains. (allegedly)
While I can see your position, from a larger societal standpoint, I can't support only prosecuting cases of illegal acts in the event that they succeed. Taking that standpoint would, in some ways, encourage illegal (AKA antisocial) actions, since the odds of being caught and punished suddenly go down.
If you price your product BELOW COST, you can be accused of predatory pricing. Without this rule, no small manufacturer could ever reasonable compete against an established one. The one with the large market share would simply undercut the competition by selling at a loss and ride on its existing resources until the competition went under. If you set a price higer than a competitor, it is used as evidence of an "abusive monopoly position" Only if coupled with other factors, such as anti-competitive \ exclusive contracts with related parties. Case in point, Microsoft's contracts with computer OEMs preventing them from bundling other OSes on the same computer as Windows. BeOS - overall, a superior product - went under because of precisely this. They had no chance to compete and prove themselves on an open market because of Microsoft's restrictive contracts. (which, in turn, no OEM would break because of Microsoft's ownership of the home market)
If you set the same price as a competitor, it is evidence of "price fixing"
CAN be, but only very rarely. As was pointed out in another post above, price-fixing \ cartel cases are spectacularly difficult to prove and usually require a "smoking gun" as evidence. The government even launching such a case is itself evidence that they have a load of proof on their side. Otherwise, it's assumed to be the result of normal market pressures. (why, for example, all the major computer brands cost about the same - prices have trended downwards since the 80s until it's hit a point that it's extremely difficult to get any cheaper and still profit. That's not price-fixing, it's the Free Market actually working as it's supposed to.)
If you all independently arrived at price X as being the point you can reasonably profit when taken against manufacturing costs, it's legal.
That's sort of like saying, if it's not terrorism to blow up a small firecracker in a men's room, then it shouldn't be terrorism to blow up a large load of TNT.
This is one of the things that truly scares me about our country at the moment. We have an Attorney General who has directed state prosecutors to always seek the maximum sentence possible, and to never plea-bargain unless it's a case where the person is rolling over to indict someone bigger than him. The Justice department is trying to make laws into absolute things - no sense of jurisprudence, no making the punishment fit the crime. Just, these are the laws, and THEIR rule is absolute, with no possibility of human compassion or understanding entering into the system. Don't bother trying to rehabilitate or teach a social lesson, just lock up anyone who transgresses.
In the long run, an attitude like that will always lead to absolutism, and therefore, authoritarianism. This progression has been followed in pretty much every applicable case in history. It's just started leaning that way in America, and it's far from the point of no return. But it's still something we have to watch, and have to fight against, lest the problem grow.
Laws are not an end unto themselves. They do not dictate morality. They are a tool, weilded in an attempt to keep society functioning. Often they intersect with morality, as it's usually defined, but not always. And to simply say "it's wrong to break a law, you deserve the consequences" is to invite abuse.
For the legal system to work in a free country, the authorities have to exercise proper jurisprudence in what cases to try, and when a person does or does not deserve to have the proverbial book thrown at him. To prosecute every single case using only the most extreme punishments is to invite governmental persecution.
What the guy did was stupid, and illegal. Of this there is no doubt. But TERRORISM? Not a chance. There are laws against prank-calling 911. There are laws against hacking. There are a dozen choices the authorities have in how to try him. Why are you defending their choice to prosecute him in the most zealous manner possible, when the exact same message ("Don't do something this stupid again,") could be imparted upon him through fining or a short jail term? Instead, we have someone who's presumably a good enough citizen who's looking to go up the river for most of the remainder of his productive life over a single, admittedly stupid, prank.
And is that any way to run a country?
And as far as too much time and money, that's probably true too. There can be multiple reasons behind this, they just combine to reach the same conclusion.
Heh. Well, in my time spent in NYC, I never saw much evidence of it. But it's probably a good thing if the government doesn't *encourage* people to run across busy streets. :-)
Computer-controlled traffic lights work a lot better than the old-fashioned timed system. (well, unless the detector screws up, but that's rare) So allowing people to interrupt the sequence would do little good. At the same time, you don't want people standing on one of those 700 crosswalks which will never volunteer a "walk" sign for ages.
So, to make sure that the people use the button in the places they need to, it's easier to leave the buttons on all the intersections. Otherwise, people might not think to use the button when it's necessary, at least not without a lot of time and prompting.
From a pure strategic standpoint, the move was brilliant. One large cash layout, and your only major competition is crushed, divided, and made irrelevant. From every OTHER standpoint, it was abhorrant. (especially in effectively stalling out any consumer-driven progression in the music industry for years)
My personal favorite alternative (which I have no problem plugging) is Magnatune. You're free to listen to the entirety of their collection via streaming MP3, your licensed with permission to share the files, and prices are negotiable. If you want to buy an album, you can select how much you pay from $1-$20, based on what you think the album is worth.
It's a truly ambitious model, and amazingly, they seem to be doing OK so far on the small scale. But can they move out of a 'niche' market? I doubt it.
Then they got bought out by Vivendi-Universal, and suddenly dropped completely off of the radar, only to be quietly shut down once they were forgotten.
Hmmmmm.
I actually have nothing whatsoever to contribute to this discussion (didn't the article say it ALL?) but figured I might as well chime in with the other alum.
I actually lasted 2 years, and only got fired because the entire center was going the way of the Titanic. I look back on it fondly, actually. One I learned the ropes, I discovered I could do pretty much anything so long as my AHT was low. So you could find me kicked back with my feet on the desk, Fark on the brower, a couple AIM convos going, with Pink Floyd playing. Hard to knock getting paid to surf.
And the nice part was that I wasn't an evil tech. I was actually good enough that I could do my job AND deliver a call time well under the required. Which ensured that I never, ever got bothered for anything I did in my cube. Hell, I probably could've come to work naked and no one would've risked making me mad.
And he would've awhile back, but he's too old for the role now.
The discovery and study of extremophiles has actually been a huge boon to those advancing theories of life on other worlds. The range of life on Earth is mind-boggling, with many organisms and animals which are at least as "alien" as anything that might be found on Venus or Jupiter or whereever. The basic point being, if they can go into places on Earth where life absolutely, positively, could not possibly be, and find life anyway, it suddenly becomes hard to summarily rule out ANY location.
And all I can think is, if there is life on Venus, it should be thanking its gods that it's safe from us...
That being said, Rockwell can do a lot of different voices, and I have little doubt he could do British if that was the direction they went with the character. Although I hope not.
The original reason for the creation of the FCC was the recognition that the airwaves are a limited resource. No regulations on who can use what frequences at what power would have made it a "free speech" situation analogous to attempting to be heard in a noisy room. You're free to speak, for sure, but no one's going to hear you.
If you're trying to tear down the FCC, you're jousting at windmills. If you have issue with the WAY that the FCC handles licenses, then that's another issue - and one which it would be quite productive to lobby on.
Why is it that whenever neurologists discover some section of the brain or chemical that causes physiological condition X to come about, they seem to automatically assume that they have found the actual CAUSE of Condition X? Maybe I'm just silly, but I can't so blindly accept that brain in such an easily-mapped organic machine.
Otherwise... I (unfortunately) work for a Texas Power Company. Don't even get me started on how screwed-up and backward "deregulation" can be.
As for the rest, my roommate got hit with a $500 bill for a couple hours of phone time to Russia. It was out in the boonies somewhere, not in one of the cities, which is probably why. But it can swing both ways. (and he had no idea the rate would be like that; was totally stunned by the bill)
But the question remains, when we can transmit ANY OTHER form of data over the Internet for only the cost of our local connection, why in the world are we paying extra for Voice service at all? No matter the cents per minute, that's still easily more expensive than a flat $40/mo for a broadband hookup.
BTW, you wouldn't happen to work for AT&T, would you?