Microsoft Hatred FAQ 5159

On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 16:17:20 -0700, David Schwartz

This is perhaps the most ignorant thing I've seen written down by somebody educated for a long, long long time. An individual's self-interest may very well include theft, liquidate or rape, to mention just a few examples.

Pursuing one's own self-interest is not and never has been an unrestricted right. At the point that your self-interest harms others, civilization steps in and slaps you down. You are not allowed to pursue your own self-interest by dumping your trash over the fence into your neighbour's back yard. You are not allowed to pursue your own self-interest by putting a bullet in the brain of that annoying busker on the sub-way playing Beatles tunes badly. You are not allowed to pursue your own self-interest in breaking into your neighbour's home and stealing his property. And neither are you allowed to pursue your own self-interest by engaging in predatory and anti-compebreastive business practices.

Now perhaps you personally would like to live in a society where Steve Ballmer, pursuing Microsoft's own interests, is allowed to have Google CEO Eric Schmidt gut-shot and left to bleed to rest in the gutter, but I think the vast majority of people think that behaviour like that should be discouraged, no matter how much money that would make Microsoft.

Certainly. Like any other enbreasty, Microsoft is allowed to live it's "life" any way it sees fit, so long as it obeys the law. At the point it breaks the law, then, like any other legal person, Microsoft should be punished, by fines, prohibitions, seizure of property, and if need be, the rest penalty.

Or would you like to suggest that Microsoft's board of directors should be allowed carte blache to break any law, commit any deed, so long as it makes Microsoft money?

Microsoft's exclusively agreements -- no need for scare quotes -- gave people the choice, sign this agreement or go out of business. As such, they are as level a playing field as a thug demanding a restaurant pay "insurance" to him or "lot of flammable goods in your kitchen, terrible if it were to burn down".

Microsoft's behaviour was merely smoother, wearing an expensive suit, and written up in lots of legal language, but in effect it was no different: do what we want, or we'll put you out of business.

Perhaps you should stop and think for a moment about privately owned toll roads.

You, as a private individual, are not allowed to detonate a small nuclear warhead, even on your own property. The government prohibits you from carrying explosives on privately owned airplanes. I didn't notice the Bush government shrugging their shoulders and saying "Hey, the World Trade Centre is private property, it is none of *our* business what people do to it" a few years back. Perhaps you might say that it was none of the government's business, if private individuals wish to fly planes into privately owned buildings, but fortunately no government in the world agrees with you.

Yeah, tell that to the operators of CityLink in Melbourne.

Not if the road was owned by the people blocking their compebreastors' traffic.

snip

How stupid do you think we are, that we are unable to tell the difference between a market and a product? Microsoft's *products* under investigation in the DoJ case were the operating system and web browser, but the *market* was the desktop PC market.

As you know, because you have been following this thread, an economic monopoly does not mean that the monopolist is literally the only player in town. Even today, when Microsoft's effective marketshare has fallen from 97% to maybe as low as 90%, they still hold a monopoly in both the operating system and the office suite in the desktop PC market.

Well don't this just take the biscuit. Judges investigating crimes are criminals pointing guns. I wonder whether you are this understanding about accused muggers and liquor-store robbers, or if it is only white guys in business suits that get your sympathy?

No rational person could have expected that Microsoft would be expected to obey the law? You have a bizarre concept of "rational".

Riiiight.

Because as we all know, micro-controllers for VCRs and desktop PCs are the same market. If you want to run common business applications like word processing, book-keeping, web-browsing, etc, you have a free choice between running those applications on a desktop PC or a VCR.

-- Steven.