4 ms·

>While true, this also gets into the ethical, moral and legal obligation a company has when for all practical purposes they have a monopoly on a market segment.

>While true, this also gets into the ethical, moral and legal obligation a company has when for all practical purposes they have a monopoly on a market segment. First off, companies do not have ethical or moral obligations at all. Corporations are purely amoral. It's up to customers to penalize them for unethical or immoral actions by refusing to support them. If the customers refuse to stop throwing money at them, it's the customers that are to blame. Secondly, MS does not have a monopoly, except for having an OS that runs software designed to run on Windows, just like Apple has a monopoly for the market of "OSes that run software designed to run on iOS or OSX". Lots of people run Macs rather than Windows-based PCs, and some run Linux. If you're not happy with Windows, it's your job to look for alternatives, just like if you're not happy driving a Chevy, it's your job to look at Hondas and Subarus instead of whining that Chevy isn't living up to your expectations. MS didn't have any legal trouble in the US, ever. They "lost" an antitrust trial in the 90s and the penalty was absolutely nothing, and that trial was all about their OS forcing the bundling of their browser. Their OS still forces the bundling of their browser, except these days, only clueless morons actually use IE/Edge, and everyone else uses either Firefox or Chrome or some variant (while some use Safari). In fact, last I heard, Chrome had the largest marketshare of all browsers. The lesson here is that if you're hoping for the government to step in and save you, you're hopelessly naïve, as proven by history. The US government in particular is never, ever going to do anything to rein in MS, and really, why should they at this point? As I pointed out above, if you don't like Windows, there are viable alternatives now (the alternatives were much worse in the late 90s, now they're actually much better). If your 3rd-party software vendor doesn't support non-Windows platforms, then maybe you should find a better one.

syshum 10y ago
>>First off, companies do not have ethical or moral obligations at all. Corporations are purely amoral. It's up to customers to penalize them for unethical or immoral actions by refusing to support them. If the customers refuse to stop throwing money at them, it's the customers that are to blame. I completely disagree with this, and believe this type of belief is one of the core problems in society. Corporations are just a social organization of people, and the people of that organization absolutely have ethical and moral obligations. Choosing to join a social organization like a corporation does not absolve you of those obligations. >Secondly, MS does not have a monopoly, except for having an OS that runs software designed to run on Windows, just like Apple has a monopoly for the market of "OSes that run software designed to run on iOS or OSX". Lots of people run Macs rather than Windows-based PCs, and some run Linux. This goes to how you define Monopoly, For most government regulating entities a monopoly is created when a company reaches over 80/90% market share in a given product category, in the 1990's Microsoft was a clear monopoly in the personal computing market. Today that is debatable if you include Smartphones, Tablets and other devices in the Category of "Personal Computers" However simply saying "There is an alternative" does not in fact legally mean there is not a monopoly. For example when Standard Oil was broken up as a Monopoly there were other Oil refinement companies, however their market share was such that they were still considered a monopoly under the legal statues governing monopolies Your analogy to cars is just absurd, Most people do not actively seek an Operating System, they use what ever operating system is supplied by the manufacturer of the devices, one of the MAJOR anti-trust violations MS was charged with was using Vertical Conclusions to lock out alternative operating systems like Linux. Intel was also charged with Anti-Trust violations for attempting use their market dominance to lock out AMD from OEM channels. Car makers did similar things in the early day with Maintenance, accessories and parts. this resulted in MASSIVE regulation of the Automotive manufacturing industry and passage of the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act which electronics companies today like to pretend does not exist >MS didn't have any legal trouble in the US, ever. They "lost" an antitrust trial in the 90s and the penalty was absolutely nothing, and that trial was all about their OS forcing the bundling of their browser. While it is true that the FTC, as is usual, failed in their duty to the American people, there was much more to the case than simply IE, that however was the most reported on in the Media, and what MS focused on in the PR efforts after the settlement was announced. Sadly with Windows 10, they have back peddled even on these provisions, no longer are browsers able to automatically set themselves as default, a user must navigate to the Default Applications Settings and manually change these. Even when doing so it asks "are you sure" at least 1 time before actually changing the default. Further users report often updates will revert these settings. >>The lesson here is that if you're hoping for the government to step in and save you, you're hopelessly naïve, as proven by history. I am expecting no such thing, I am a libertarian. Geo-Libertarian to be exact. At no point did I say anything about the government saving anyone. The fact I believe corporations have legal and moral obligations have nothing at all do with government. Having said that, given that corporations are government created entries that can not exist with out the legal framework the government created that allows for their existence, I do believe any evil a corporation does can and should be directly attributed to government as they are ultimately the creators and protectors of ever corporation to have ever existed and ever will exist >As I pointed out above, if you don't like Windows, there are viable alternatives now (the alternatives were much worse in the late 90s, now they're actually much better). I have been using Linux since 1999. > If your 3rd-party software vendor doesn't support non-Windows platforms, then maybe you should find a better one. I normally just write my own
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  >I completely disagree with this, and believe this type of belief is one of the core problems in society. That's a perfectly valid opinion, however the law states otherwise; our society and legal system both reward amoral thinking in corporations. >Corporations are just a social organization of people, and the people of that organization absolutely have ethical and moral obligations. You can believe this all you want, but the people who run the largest corporations disagree, and have no ethics or morals; they're sociopaths. As a society, we reward this by continuing to support companies run by sociopaths, and also by voting for sociopaths to lead our governments. So you can believe whatever you want about how corporations and the people who run them should act, but most people disagree with you implicitly, based on their voting and buying decisions. >Choosing to join a social organization like a corporation does not absolve you of those obligations. You can claim this, but you have absolutely no way of enforcing your belief. Similarly, I could claim that you are personally obligated to buy me a house, and that I think it's the moral thing to do, but I have absolutely no way to enforce this opinion. >For most government regulating entities a monopoly is created when a company reaches over 80/90% market share in a given product category, in the 1990's Microsoft was a clear monopoly in the personal computing market. Today that is debatable if you include Smartphones, Tablets and other devices in the Category of "Personal Computers" If you include those, then MS is nowhere near a monopoly. Windows Phone is a joke. But if you narrow things down to PCs, then it's murkier, but even here last I heard they had less than 90% thanks to the rise of Apple mainly. >However simply saying "There is an alternative" does not in fact legally mean there is not a monopoly. That's true, but the other thing you're missing, just as you missed with your stuff about ethics above, is enforcement: how exactly do you propose to enforce your opinion? You have no way to; all you can do is hope the government will agree with you and act accordingly. There is zero evidence of this, and instead plenty of evidence that MS will be able to do whatever they want, within reason. So your only choices are to suffer and whine, or switch. >Most people do not actively seek an Operating System, they use what ever operating system is supplied by the manufacturer of the devices Then why are people actively seeking out Macs and iPhones? People who shop for Macbooks don't even bother looking at alternatives, because they do NOT want to run Windows. >MS was charged with was using Vertical Conclusions to lock out alternative operating systems like Linux They were charged, but what happened? Nothing. > Car makers did similar things in the early day with Maintenance, accessories and parts. this resulted in MASSIVE regulation of the Automotive manufacturing industry and passage of the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act which electronics companies today like to pretend does not exist A lot of car dealerships pretend that doesn't exist too, but at least there's some legal teeth there. But M-M has almost nothing to do with MS or operating systems or the topic at hand. There is zero evidence that the government is going to pass any legislation to deal with MS's market dominance, so you can either suck it up or find an alternative. >Sadly with Windows 10, they have back peddled even on these provisions, no longer are browsers able to automatically set themselves as default, a user must navigate to the Default Applications Settings and manually change these. Ok, so what are you going to do about it? This just proves my point: hoping for any kind of relief from the government is foolish in the extreme. You can either remain a victim, or you can leave.

syshum 10y ago

>>First off, companies do not have ethical or moral obligations at all. Corporations are purely amoral. It's up to customers to penalize them for unethical or immoral actions by refusing to support them. If the customers refuse to stop throwing money at them, it's the customers that are to blame. I completely disagree with this, and believe this type of belief is one of the core problems in society. Corporations are just a social organization of people, and the people of that organization absolutely have ethical and moral obligations. Choosing to join a social organization like a corporation does not absolve you of those obligations. >Secondly, MS does not have a monopoly, except for having an OS that runs software designed to run on Windows, just like Apple has a monopoly for the market of "OSes that run software designed to run on iOS or OSX". Lots of people run Macs rather than Windows-based PCs, and some run Linux. This goes to how you define Monopoly, For most government regulating entities a monopoly is created when a company reaches over 80/90% market share in a given product category, in the 1990's Microsoft was a clear monopoly in the personal computing market. Today that is debatable if you include Smartphones, Tablets and other devices in the Category of "Personal Computers" However simply saying "There is an alternative" does not in fact legally mean there is not a monopoly. For example when Standard Oil was broken up as a Monopoly there were other Oil refinement companies, however their market share was such that they were still considered a monopoly under the legal statues governing monopolies Your analogy to cars is just absurd, Most people do not actively seek an Operating System, they use what ever operating system is supplied by the manufacturer of the devices, one of the MAJOR anti-trust violations MS was charged with was using Vertical Conclusions to lock out alternative operating systems like Linux. Intel was also charged with Anti-Trust violations for attempting use their market dominance to lock out AMD from OEM channels. Car makers did similar things in the early day with Maintenance, accessories and parts. this resulted in MASSIVE regulation of the Automotive manufacturing industry and passage of the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act which electronics companies today like to pretend does not exist >MS didn't have any legal trouble in the US, ever. They "lost" an antitrust trial in the 90s and the penalty was absolutely nothing, and that trial was all about their OS forcing the bundling of their browser. While it is true that the FTC, as is usual, failed in their duty to the American people, there was much more to the case than simply IE, that however was the most reported on in the Media, and what MS focused on in the PR efforts after the settlement was announced. Sadly with Windows 10, they have back peddled even on these provisions, no longer are browsers able to automatically set themselves as default, a user must navigate to the Default Applications Settings and manually change these. Even when doing so it asks "are you sure" at least 1 time before actually changing the default. Further users report often updates will revert these settings. >>The lesson here is that if you're hoping for the government to step in and save you, you're hopelessly naïve, as proven by history. I am expecting no such thing, I am a libertarian. Geo-Libertarian to be exact. At no point did I say anything about the government saving anyone. The fact I believe corporations have legal and moral obligations have nothing at all do with government. Having said that, given that corporations are government created entries that can not exist with out the legal framework the government created that allows for their existence, I do believe any evil a corporation does can and should be directly attributed to government as they are ultimately the creators and protectors of ever corporation to have ever existed and ever will exist >As I pointed out above, if you don't like Windows, there are viable alternatives now (the alternatives were much worse in the late 90s, now they're actually much better). I have been using Linux since 1999. > If your 3rd-party software vendor doesn't support non-Windows platforms, then maybe you should find a better one. I normally just write my own

Grishnakh 10y ago
>I completely disagree with this, and believe this type of belief is one of the core problems in society. That's a perfectly valid opinion, however the law states otherwise; our society and legal system both reward amoral thinking in corporations. >Corporations are just a social organization of people, and the people of that organization absolutely have ethical and moral obligations. You can believe this all you want, but the people who run the largest corporations disagree, and have no ethics or morals; they're sociopaths. As a society, we reward this by continuing to support companies run by sociopaths, and also by voting for sociopaths to lead our governments. So you can believe whatever you want about how corporations and the people who run them should act, but most people disagree with you implicitly, based on their voting and buying decisions. >Choosing to join a social organization like a corporation does not absolve you of those obligations. You can claim this, but you have absolutely no way of enforcing your belief. Similarly, I could claim that you are personally obligated to buy me a house, and that I think it's the moral thing to do, but I have absolutely no way to enforce this opinion. >For most government regulating entities a monopoly is created when a company reaches over 80/90% market share in a given product category, in the 1990's Microsoft was a clear monopoly in the personal computing market. Today that is debatable if you include Smartphones, Tablets and other devices in the Category of "Personal Computers" If you include those, then MS is nowhere near a monopoly. Windows Phone is a joke. But if you narrow things down to PCs, then it's murkier, but even here last I heard they had less than 90% thanks to the rise of Apple mainly. >However simply saying "There is an alternative" does not in fact legally mean there is not a monopoly. That's true, but the other thing you're missing, just as you missed with your stuff about ethics above, is enforcement: how exactly do you propose to enforce your opinion? You have no way to; all you can do is hope the government will agree with you and act accordingly. There is zero evidence of this, and instead plenty of evidence that MS will be able to do whatever they want, within reason. So your only choices are to suffer and whine, or switch. >Most people do not actively seek an Operating System, they use what ever operating system is supplied by the manufacturer of the devices Then why are people actively seeking out Macs and iPhones? People who shop for Macbooks don't even bother looking at alternatives, because they do NOT want to run Windows. >MS was charged with was using Vertical Conclusions to lock out alternative operating systems like Linux They were charged, but what happened? Nothing. > Car makers did similar things in the early day with Maintenance, accessories and parts. this resulted in MASSIVE regulation of the Automotive manufacturing industry and passage of the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act which electronics companies today like to pretend does not exist A lot of car dealerships pretend that doesn't exist too, but at least there's some legal teeth there. But M-M has almost nothing to do with MS or operating systems or the topic at hand. There is zero evidence that the government is going to pass any legislation to deal with MS's market dominance, so you can either suck it up or find an alternative. >Sadly with Windows 10, they have back peddled even on these provisions, no longer are browsers able to automatically set themselves as default, a user must navigate to the Default Applications Settings and manually change these. Ok, so what are you going to do about it? This just proves my point: hoping for any kind of relief from the government is foolish in the extreme. You can either remain a victim, or you can leave.