Quote from: jpinkman on July 09, 2012, 05:55 amQuote from: anarcho47 on July 09, 2012, 03:46 amFirst of all, why should MS have been prevented from GIVING AWAY something? Hell, why should they have been prevented from doing whatever they hell they wanted with the resources from the profits of windows? (There are some fucked up things with MS but they all have to do with artificial violent constructs like copyright and IP, and they don't need to be touched on here because that is TRILLIONS of dollars of misallocated resources around the world, and it's not due to some evil "oligarchs".)The "value destroying" argument you made was actually microsoft employing its resources to create a web-browser (that, at the time, was better than netscape) and give it away to its customers. It didn't destroy value, it freed up the several billion dollars per year that customers were originally deploying towards netscape's browser. That's not "ruthless", it's just smart. And the customers win.Again, you're just not getting it. Customers don't win when there are monopolies. Competition is what drives innovation in the marketplace. So yeah, if you don't have a problem with monopolies, then there's nothing wrong in your worldview with giving away inferior desktop applications. Just don't go around claiming that customers win because after the initial phase, they don't. They lose. I encourage you to learn a bit in the field of economics. The problem with monopolies is really elementary stuff. I already mentioned that IE was a superior browser because it was faster and NS was unable to compete in this area. And what happened after NS was driven to bankruptcy? There were many years of no new innovation in browser tech. MS stopped developing IE because they had "won". Until opensource software like Firefox, Opera, and Chrome began to drive MS into developing again. QuoteWhat you are saying right now is that we should be shutting down Google for creating the android OS and charging ZERO licensing fees to use it. You are saying that it is value-destroying that people in Africa can purchase a basic chinese spartphone for $89.00 running the Android OS, that would cost them about $200 to run Windows for phone, and would be impossible to get from a company like Apple (also running proprietary and soon to have some major failures on that front).Once again, it's clear you're running up to the limitations of your knowledge. You're comparing apples and oranges. First of all, the Android distro was not "created" by Google like MS created their desktop applications or created IE. Android is a linux based distro for mobile devices completely developed and maintained by the opensource community committed to developing and maintaining free software. Linux is an OS that's been freely licensed and developed by the opensource community since the first kernel was written in '92 by Linus Torvald dude. Google purchased Android in '05 after the distro had already been created and they lead a consortium that develops free software for mobile based devices specific to Android, but are prevented by the strict rules of the GNU licensing agreement developed by Linus from anyone profiting off the sale of freely developed software on an OS he created. So Android must be free. The opensource community is a great benefit to consumers by once again providing competition to MS to make better products. I already mentioned how it drove them to start developing their browser again. That's just one example of many, but it should be clear that opensource software is of great benefit by offering consumers more choices. Not destroying competition and limiting them. In light of this, the crux of your argument of why Google should be shut down is absurd. You're simply not understanding that competition is beneficial to everyone (good) while monopolies only benefit the few (bad). Maybe this is all too technical for you to understand, or maybe terms like opensource and distinction between "distro" and "OS" are over your head. If so, I encourage you to learn about them to get a better grip of what you're arguing.QuoteWhat you are railing against is progress. It's not "ruthless", just because it does something better or cheaper than someone else. If the customers win, and no violence is employed, why the hell should we want to try to destroy the institution enriching society by giving it more, for less?Sorry dude, monopolization of a commercial sector is not progress. It stifles progress. You seem mentally incapable of recognizing that the only reason MS was able to give away their desktop apps software was not because their desktop apps were markedly better and cheaper than the competition because they weren't, but because they owned an entirely different market, not the desktop application market, but the desktop OS market, that gave them the resources to give away their desktop apps until competitors in the desktop apps market went out of business. Just like your inability to acknowledge that rewriting the MS desktop OS source code which they owned to give IE a higher priority that competitors like NS did not have access to and were unable to do is using their monopolistic power in an entirely different market to unfair advantage. It can't be anymore clear than that and if you don't see it, I'm probably not going to be able to point it out to you. Just that there's not a lot of people that would agree with you.I'll try one last tact though it's an imperfect analogy. I see you sell weed on SR. Let's say SR was the only viable market to sell drugs and a competitor came along who owned the markets in all the other drugs sold on SR. Now they they wanted to own the weed market and offered products competitive to yours and all other vendors but made their products free. After a while, you and other growers would no longer be able to stay in business since the cost of keeping your grow ops can't be supported when you can't sell your product. They were able to do this not because their weed was of such superior quality that no one wanted to buy yours, but because they owned other markets and could afford to make their weed free as a market strategy to capture the SR weed market too. But of course, you'd think this was perfectly fair and wouldn't consider it ruthless right? After all, this would have great initial benefits for consumers since they get their shit free ... but only up to a point. There would be no need to improve the strains or offer more variety to the consumer, nothing to drive innovation. After you declared bankruptcy they would first buy up all your assets in the fire sale of bankruptcy court, and with you and the rest were dead and gone, they would likely introduce a price that would offset some losses but still make operating costs all but unbearably impossible for new vendors that might consider entering the market. But since they owned all the other drug markets combined, they could more than afford it just to own the market since it the cost was only a tiny fraction of their total revenue. This is very much like what MS did to own the office app market.Now, imagine that in place of the conglomerate that owned all the other SR drug markets, this was actually the creator of the SR market itself, DPR, who had the vast funds that he made from SR commissions as well as all the other markets at his disposal and wanted to own the SR weed market. So he starts producing weed competitive to yours and all other vendors and not only offers them for free, but makes sure that when a buyer goes to buy weed his listings show up first while your products that actually cost money show up last. Of course, you don't understand why anyone would see this as ruthless right? It's perfectly fair that you have to shut down shop because after all, he owns the platform, he can dictate whatever he wants to do with it. This is like what MS did to own the browser market.The reason I say it's an imperfect analogy is that it actually costs money to keep running a weed grow-op and giving away weed for free whereas after MS "won" the browser war it cost them nothing for a number of years as they did nothing to continue to develop and improve it.One last note is on your example of bringing up US Steel. FYI, US Steel wasn't a total monopoly. They had 70% of the industry before their breakup. But their competitors were forced be much more innovative and efficient to stay competitive at all. You note that US Steel was able to offer the product cheaper. I wouldn't say their production methods were better, just that they cost less. But of course they did. I encourage you to learn what the term "economies of scale" means. That's what happens when you own 70% of the market and manufacturing process. And of course prices went up initially after their breakup. That's what always happens right after the breakup of a monopoly because you no longer have one company taking advantage of economies of scale. It takes a while for competition and innovation to bring prices down again but it's still better long term.So I mentioned already that I think you suffer from a certain mainstream naivete. But it's also become clear you have a fundamentally poor grasp of economics and how markets work and I strongly encourage you to take a basic economics class. Since you're a SR weed vendor, I really think you'd have a lot to gain and find it a super educational experience. If you're familiar with that show The Wire while still in syndication you'll remember that's what Stringer Bell did and he was able to apply the knowledge to great affect. :)Find me one instance where a monopoly has been able to actually exist within any market, WITHOUT the use of government force (and excluding the absolutely inane idea of intellectual "property", which is also a government construct). Otherwise, your entire post was just a long-assed waste of time and possible carpeltunnel.Go find me those lower steel prices, too...