You are ridiculously off-base.
Natural Selection is an inherently random process that statistically moves forward against environmental barriers. Any competition that exists is against the environment, which can, but does not need to consist of individuals in your species, or any other. Any first-year college evolutionary biology class will try very hard to drive this point home into your head.
He was right, though. You really are a pompous pile of shit when it comes to social interactions. Just enough intelligence to turn a serious case of tiny-cock syndrome terminal.
This is an unfortunate and common misunderstanding of evolution. It isn't remotely competitive. The environment is competitive. The method of evolution can indeed exist and flourish without any competition between fellows. Natural selection can find many ways to improve the reproductive fitness of organisms, and in many cases, too much intraspecies competition can indeed be a negative pressure.
The iPod did in fact require the iTunes software to be used, which can be argued to be nearly analogous to the iTunes store. Tying products to your monopolized market is an anti-competitive practice, by case law (ask Microsoft). The allure of the iPod provides allure to the iTunes store, simply by it having to be installed to use the iPod, allowing it to compete where it may not actually be competitive in its market.
Tying razor blades to your razor is legal, but only as long as you don't have a dominant market position.
While you're correct that the highest market share isn't automatically a monopoly, you are falling prey to the blunder of being too literal.
For US law, (Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts) a literal monopoly need not be present. 74% of the market place with the largest competitor having less than 5% is a "Dominant Market Position", and monopolization via "Tying Products". Microsoft can tell you all about it.
Sure do. A 74% market share is a monopoly.
If 74 out of 100 personal audio players are single-vendor, it doesn't matter how many different vendors account for those other 26.
http://presentationzen.blogs.c...
Yawn.
Are you now going to say, "but that is 2005!"
Apple didn't have to force anything on anyone. That's not what antitrust laws are about. The fact is, they used their leverage of a monopoly in one market to harm players in another market.
Should have been written as *personal* media players, and yes, they did.
It is absolutely true that their product was good, but that is in no way relevant to antitrust discussions. Monopoly, whether by-merit, or not, is still subject to special rules with regard to penetration in other market places.
Not a single other point you made is even relevant.
I don't live in Germany, but my closest friend since about the age of 18 does, and I can say with absolute certainty, based upon the pictures she sends me of there, and her own personal vehicle, that my anecdote would not match yours.
My guess is that's more a function of affluence, which is in fact one of the few metrics we do win in.
Unless of course the function determining probability of Elk-Road encounter were a function of distance rather than time... My head hurts too much to try to figure it out, but it seems likely to me that it is.
You've illustrated the exact problem. The fact that their players worked with MP3s is not the problem. The fact that they were leveraging their monopoly in digital players to advance a format that stifled competition is. Anyone who purchased that material was harmed by those practices, illegal if you're a monopoly, at least allegedly so. The courts will decide, ultimately.
It'd be like suing a BMW dealer for selling me a part that is only intended to be used with BMWs because it doesn't work in my Toyota, even though the analogous part my Toyota uses is a standard, non-specialized one that can be picked up from any retail auto parts shop.
I think a better analogy would be for GM, in the US, to suddenly only produce cars that only operated with a specific type of Gas nozzle, not replaceable, and patented with refusal to license to other manufacturers. This would have major consequences to the fuel distribution market, even with GM lacking a monopoly. With a monopoly, it would be a death knell for Ford.
I'm of course talking about the leveraging of the iPod monopoly to abuse the market of digital audio distribution.
since the plaintiff's complaints (that they couldn't play their iTunes music on their non-iPod MP3 players) are not related to a misuse of the iPod's market position.
I think this is where our viewpoints diverge...
I believe it's precisely because of the iPod's market dominance that they could not do so. If the iPod did not have dominance, then it would be a very, very poor business decision by Apple to make it impossible to play their digitally distributed music only on Apple players.
Far more complicated than that. Lower gear ratios do not directly reduce fuel consumption, but rather indirectly through reduced compression and other rotational/time domain losses in the power delivery. That is, there are diminishing returns, and most modern cars will gain very little with a lower final gear ratio (assuming they're able to move at all, since torque is already effectively barely enough to accelerate most cars in final gear at higher speeds)
It's perfectly legal for anyone not abusing their Monopoly (or lack thereof in Microsoft's case with regard to the personal audio player market)
Same reason no one busted Apple's balls over tightly bundling Safari with OSX.
You can get away with all kinds of anti-competitive practices, right up until you effectively monopolize a market (fairly or not)
You're aware Microsoft didn't have a monopoly in the music-player market, right?
Now, if they bundled a Zune with every installation of Windows, they'd be in some deep shit.
I'm certain you understand that antitrust law imposes special restrictions upon monopolies, right?
That's why it was no problem that Apple bundled Safari with OSX.
Because there are rules that apply to you when you have a monopoly on a market (As Apple does on personal audio players)
You can't use your monopoly in one market to dominate in another. That's an anti-trust violation.
It's Internet Explorer bundled with Windows, only Apple is/was significantly more sinister in this particular regard. (Everyone's got an iPod, so everyone must use iTunes, which is strongly tied to the music store that is again only functional on the iPod)
Obviously, it's not nearly as bad anymore. Competition managed to arise, undoubtedly much to Jobs' angst, and so the monopoly was forced to make baby steps toward consumer satisfaction.
Chevy gas in your BMW would be a better analogy.
I don't think anyone is complaining because they can't replace the screen on their iPod with the screen from their Zune.
Fair enough, with the one caveat, that they may as well be the same, because unlike the crust of the Earth, if you dig down a few feet, history can record that you continued to exist.
Hah- I had thought the 0-dimensional point was simply 0-dimensional with regard to outside coordinate system physics (ie, interior all timelike paths closed) within its real-space volume. Not sure where I got that idea now, in retrospect. I get the difference now, thanks
No- not all monopolies are, I completely agree. That's why the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts were written to specifically discriminate against monopolies that were harmful, or non-merit based (where merit doesn't include a hostile takeover of the market with the resources you acquired legitimately).
Slashdot Mirror
You are ridiculously off-base.
Natural Selection is an inherently random process that statistically moves forward against environmental barriers. Any competition that exists is against the environment, which can, but does not need to consist of individuals in your species, or any other. Any first-year college evolutionary biology class will try very hard to drive this point home into your head.
He was right, though. You really are a pompous pile of shit when it comes to social interactions. Just enough intelligence to turn a serious case of tiny-cock syndrome terminal.
This is an unfortunate and common misunderstanding of evolution. It isn't remotely competitive. The environment is competitive. The method of evolution can indeed exist and flourish without any competition between fellows. Natural selection can find many ways to improve the reproductive fitness of organisms, and in many cases, too much intraspecies competition can indeed be a negative pressure.
it.... does. :/
The iPod did in fact require the iTunes software to be used, which can be argued to be nearly analogous to the iTunes store. Tying products to your monopolized market is an anti-competitive practice, by case law (ask Microsoft). The allure of the iPod provides allure to the iTunes store, simply by it having to be installed to use the iPod, allowing it to compete where it may not actually be competitive in its market.
Tying razor blades to your razor is legal, but only as long as you don't have a dominant market position.
While you're correct that the highest market share isn't automatically a monopoly, you are falling prey to the blunder of being too literal. For US law, (Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts) a literal monopoly need not be present. 74% of the market place with the largest competitor having less than 5% is a "Dominant Market Position", and monopolization via "Tying Products". Microsoft can tell you all about it.
Sure do. A 74% market share is a monopoly.
If 74 out of 100 personal audio players are single-vendor, it doesn't matter how many different vendors account for those other 26.
http://presentationzen.blogs.c...
Yawn.
Are you now going to say, "but that is 2005!"
Apple didn't have to force anything on anyone. That's not what antitrust laws are about. The fact is, they used their leverage of a monopoly in one market to harm players in another market.
Should have been written as *personal* media players, and yes, they did.
It is absolutely true that their product was good, but that is in no way relevant to antitrust discussions. Monopoly, whether by-merit, or not, is still subject to special rules with regard to penetration in other market places.
Not a single other point you made is even relevant.
To not travel in time, you would have to raise the speed limit^H^H^H^H^H to c
Physicist'd that for you.
Restored sanity to the universe for you.
Their vehicles are also more highly maintained.
I don't live in Germany, but my closest friend since about the age of 18 does, and I can say with absolute certainty, based upon the pictures she sends me of there, and her own personal vehicle, that my anecdote would not match yours.
My guess is that's more a function of affluence, which is in fact one of the few metrics we do win in.
Unless of course the function determining probability of Elk-Road encounter were a function of distance rather than time... My head hurts too much to try to figure it out, but it seems likely to me that it is.
You've illustrated the exact problem. The fact that their players worked with MP3s is not the problem. The fact that they were leveraging their monopoly in digital players to advance a format that stifled competition is. Anyone who purchased that material was harmed by those practices, illegal if you're a monopoly, at least allegedly so. The courts will decide, ultimately.
It'd be like suing a BMW dealer for selling me a part that is only intended to be used with BMWs because it doesn't work in my Toyota, even though the analogous part my Toyota uses is a standard, non-specialized one that can be picked up from any retail auto parts shop.
I think a better analogy would be for GM, in the US, to suddenly only produce cars that only operated with a specific type of Gas nozzle, not replaceable, and patented with refusal to license to other manufacturers. This would have major consequences to the fuel distribution market, even with GM lacking a monopoly. With a monopoly, it would be a death knell for Ford.
since the plaintiff's complaints (that they couldn't play their iTunes music on their non-iPod MP3 players) are not related to a misuse of the iPod's market position.
I think this is where our viewpoints diverge...
I believe it's precisely because of the iPod's market dominance that they could not do so. If the iPod did not have dominance, then it would be a very, very poor business decision by Apple to make it impossible to play their digitally distributed music only on Apple players.
Am I off-base?
Far more complicated than that. Lower gear ratios do not directly reduce fuel consumption, but rather indirectly through reduced compression and other rotational/time domain losses in the power delivery. That is, there are diminishing returns, and most modern cars will gain very little with a lower final gear ratio (assuming they're able to move at all, since torque is already effectively barely enough to accelerate most cars in final gear at higher speeds)
It's perfectly legal for anyone not abusing their Monopoly (or lack thereof in Microsoft's case with regard to the personal audio player market)
Same reason no one busted Apple's balls over tightly bundling Safari with OSX.
You can get away with all kinds of anti-competitive practices, right up until you effectively monopolize a market (fairly or not)
You're aware Microsoft didn't have a monopoly in the music-player market, right?
Now, if they bundled a Zune with every installation of Windows, they'd be in some deep shit.
I'm certain you understand that antitrust law imposes special restrictions upon monopolies, right?
That's why it was no problem that Apple bundled Safari with OSX.
Because there are rules that apply to you when you have a monopoly on a market (As Apple does on personal audio players)
You can't use your monopoly in one market to dominate in another. That's an anti-trust violation.
It's Internet Explorer bundled with Windows, only Apple is/was significantly more sinister in this particular regard. (Everyone's got an iPod, so everyone must use iTunes, which is strongly tied to the music store that is again only functional on the iPod)
Obviously, it's not nearly as bad anymore. Competition managed to arise, undoubtedly much to Jobs' angst, and so the monopoly was forced to make baby steps toward consumer satisfaction.
Chevy gas in your BMW would be a better analogy.
I don't think anyone is complaining because they can't replace the screen on their iPod with the screen from their Zune.
Fair enough, with the one caveat, that they may as well be the same, because unlike the crust of the Earth, if you dig down a few feet, history can record that you continued to exist.
Hah- I had thought the 0-dimensional point was simply 0-dimensional with regard to outside coordinate system physics (ie, interior all timelike paths closed) within its real-space volume. Not sure where I got that idea now, in retrospect. I get the difference now, thanks
No- not all monopolies are, I completely agree. That's why the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts were written to specifically discriminate against monopolies that were harmful, or non-merit based (where merit doesn't include a hostile takeover of the market with the resources you acquired legitimately).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
That's the one that I remember most, but there are probably lots of examples from that era.
/thread.
Humbling. You're good people.