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> Gates held the entire computer industry back The industry does this job well by itself, I doubt things would be much different if Microsoft wasn't around. >

> Gates held the entire computer industry back The industry does this job well by itself, I doubt things would be much different if Microsoft wasn't around. > What he does with ill-gotten gains Yet all transactions that contributed to his gains were voluntary.

subdane 11y ago
Technically no, if we're talking about installs of OS on platforms. Bad business decisions and uninformed consumer decisions don't necessarily line up with "voluntary". Voluntary on the part of the manufacturer, yes. But less obviously so on the part of a less informed consumer. And complicated further by the fact that some of those manufacturers later came to regret the deal they entered - specifically that MSFT got a cut of all shipped machines regardless of whether their OS was installed.
- RaleyField 11y ago
  Ignorance isn't an excuse - otherwise we are the baddies for being at fault for not steering consumers towards better alternatives, not Gates. > later came to regret the deal they entered - specifically that MSFT got a cut of all shipped machines regardless of whether their OS was installed. Then they should've developed their own OS, as they were completely free to do.
jack9 11y ago
> I doubt things would be much different if Microsoft wasn't around. The man-hours wasted working around the bugs with Fat32 and NetBIOS and the slew of broken MS implementations can never be recovered. MS Office is STILL an endearing testament to what has been spent cradling flawed MS technological choices. The idea that the world would be the same without MS is nonsensical. The question is if we would have developed things like VMs a decade before (we would have through Sun filling those gaps with their existing tech). Maybe Sun would have burned down anyway, but that's besides the point. > Yet all transactions that contributed to his gains were voluntary. They were often coerced. They were tried and convicted in multiple arenas, for abuse of the de-facto monopoly. Where does this revisionist thinking get incubated?

subdane 11y ago

Technically no, if we're talking about installs of OS on platforms. Bad business decisions and uninformed consumer decisions don't necessarily line up with "voluntary". Voluntary on the part of the manufacturer, yes. But less obviously so on the part of a less informed consumer. And complicated further by the fact that some of those manufacturers later came to regret the deal they entered - specifically that MSFT got a cut of all shipped machines regardless of whether their OS was installed.

RaleyField 11y ago
Ignorance isn't an excuse - otherwise we are the baddies for being at fault for not steering consumers towards better alternatives, not Gates. > later came to regret the deal they entered - specifically that MSFT got a cut of all shipped machines regardless of whether their OS was installed. Then they should've developed their own OS, as they were completely free to do.

jack9 11y ago

> I doubt things would be much different if Microsoft wasn't around. The man-hours wasted working around the bugs with Fat32 and NetBIOS and the slew of broken MS implementations can never be recovered. MS Office is STILL an endearing testament to what has been spent cradling flawed MS technological choices. The idea that the world would be the same without MS is nonsensical. The question is if we would have developed things like VMs a decade before (we would have through Sun filling those gaps with their existing tech). Maybe Sun would have burned down anyway, but that's besides the point. > Yet all transactions that contributed to his gains were voluntary. They were often coerced. They were tried and convicted in multiple arenas, for abuse of the de-facto monopoly. Where does this revisionist thinking get incubated?