4 ms·

> But none of the examples he gives demonstrates that, because they are not examples where the moboplist was displaced independently of antitrust actions. IBM

> But none of the examples he gives demonstrates that, because they are not examples where the moboplist was displaced independently of antitrust actions. IBM and Microsoft weren't dethroned until roughly a decade later, so it's a real stretch to claim any kind of causal relationship. Especially because they maintained — to this day — their monopolies in mainframes and PC operating systems. It's just that technological change made their monopolies less relevant. There was certainly a causal relationship WRT AT&T, but the conclusion to that tale does not go "and then, American telecommunications companies became well-known for their low prices and excellent customer service." > Antitrust action does not occur against benevolent monopolies in the US system, it only occurs when a monopolist illegally leveraged their monopoly That's rather begging the question. The DoJ's cases against IBM and Microsoft, in particular, may have been financial bonanzas for the legal industry, but the central legal claims were Kafkaesque: the supposed "unfair competition" was that IBM bundled support services with its computers and Microsoft bundled software with its operating system. Essentially, the DoJ's claim was that their products offered too good a value to consumers, and ought to have been made worse so their competitors' products would have a better chance. IBM and Microsoft may well have engaged in genuine anti-competitive practices (ironically, MS' sabotage of OS/2 would be a good example), but those weren't. And maybe the DoJ could have brought cases against them that actually served to the benefit of consumers, but again, those didn't.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> IBM and Microsoft weren't dethroned until roughly a decade later, so it's a real stretch to claim any kind of causal relationship. Microsoft, strictly speaking, still hasn't been dethroned, it's just the market in which it has its monopoly has itself become less important in the grand scheme of things. OTOH, it became less important because of other markets to which the government action prevented it from extending it's monopoly, which pretty clearly shows the relevance of the government action. Likewise, the IBM antitrust action is what created the boom in independent comouter software and services businesses, which directly led to IBM being dethroned because software commoditized the computers running it.
- smitherfield 10y ago
  >> IBM and Microsoft weren't dethroned until roughly a decade later, so it's a real stretch to claim any kind of causal relationship. > Microsoft, strictly speaking, still hasn't been dethroned, it's just the market in which it has its monopoly has itself become less important in the grand scheme of things. This is literally my next sentence? > OTOH, it became less important because of other markets to which the government action prevented it from extending it's monopoly, which pretty clearly shows the relevance of the government action. Smartphones? Somebody should tell Nokia. The only one whose actions prevented them extending their monopoly to that area was Steve Ballmer. (Or Steve Jobs — six of one Steve, half a dozen of the other). > Likewise, the IBM antitrust action is what created the boom in independent comouter software and services businesses, which directly led to IBM being dethroned because software commoditized the computers running it. Patently absurd. IBM's fate was sealed a few months after the start of the suit, when Digital introduced its PDP-11 minicomputer, and over the next 13 years, along with others, e.g. Seymour Cray at the high end, proceeded to disprove the DoJ's case in real time, taking huge amounts of market share away from IBM's mainframes the old-fashioned way, by offering a superior product at a (much) lower price. It was on Digital's machines, not mainframes, that software publishing (such as ...AT&T's Unix) first became a major industry. Al Gore's representations about the internet weren't really all that bad by politician standards, but to claim John Mitchell[1] invented software development is a new one. Around the time the DoJ dropped its case against IBM, they committed accidental suicide when they released the PC, with someone else's (Intel 8088) proprietary chips and, even more egregiously, someone else's proprietary operating system (DOS, by you-guessed-it), which enabled everyone and their brother to make their own, cut-price copies, and, adding insult to injury, giving their erstwhile chip and OS vendors gazillion-dollar licensing bonanzas that IBM never saw a penny of. This was IBM's own dumb idea, not John Mitchell's. — [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Mitchell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Mitchell
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    I think you're confusing an absolute hermetic market monopoly with anti-trust law. Anti-trust law doesn't require a total monopoly. It requires evidence of monopolistic practices which adversely affect consumers and customers. If you're negotiating, it's not a monopoly. If you're negotiating with a gorilla you can't afford to anger, or if you're being told what to buy and when and not negotiating at all, it's a monopoly. IBM, AT&T, MS all showed clear evidence of anti-trust breaches. The PDP-11 proves the point. DEC's PDP series was marketed as a Programmed Data Processor and not a Computer because the IBM had a lock on computer sales and rentals. Upper management in most of America would never authorise a computer purchase from anyone other than IBM. Marketing the series as a PDP meant technicians, scientists, and engineers could buy a computer through a side-channel that bypassed the usual corporate acquisition process. This wouldn't have been necessary if no lockdown existed. RCA, Honeywell, and others all tried to break into the computer market directly. Only CDC succeeded, and that was only because Cray gave CDC a lead in HPC that IBM couldn't match. For bread and butter corporate computing, IBM really did own the market.
nerfhammer 10y ago
> the conclusion to that tale does not go "and then, American telecommunications companies became well-known for their low prices and excellent customer service." You're kidding, right? Long distance calls during weekday hours used to cost like $6/minute, accounting for inflation. This improved rapidly after the breakup, not solely because of better technology, but because before that long distance was where AT&T was making most of its money and it had little reason to reduce costs or compete on pricing; i.e. it couldn't act competitively basically by definition.
- smitherfield 10y ago
  The 80's and 90's saw the introduction of digital signals, computerized switching and fiber-optic cable networks (all Bell Labs inventions), which significantly reduced the cost of landline calls in general, and in particular eliminated the additional complexity associated with providing long-distance service versus local. This was also the period in which landline started very rapidly losing market share to cell phones (also a Bell Labs invention[1]). Remember when they used to charge you a dollar per text message? Remember when they used to charge you an arm and a leg if you went over your allotted number of minutes? Remember how they still do if you go over your ration of gigabytes? Telecom has exactly the same razor/blade business model it did 10, 20 or 40 years ago. All that's changed is which services are the loss-leaders and which are the bleeding-edge, desirable features that they charge you a king's ransom for. Normal technological churn. — [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Phone_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Phone_System
  - nerfhammer 10y ago
    Your thesis seemed to be that phone service was worse and more expensive due to AT&T being broken up, no? I feel that proposition is absurd and at odds with all available facts. You seem to be saying that competitive pressure has no effect on prices. I don't think that many people dropped their landlines for cell phones in the 80's, or even the 90's. I find it difficult to believe that fewer or no competitors would lead to the same or lower cell phone bills.
sqeaky 10y ago
You take a very dishonest stance on the charges against microsoft. They actively broke other people's software (Dr DOS) and made APIs that that only they could use which provided enormous, abusable and well abused competitive advantage. They actively interfered with standardization processes. They did a ton of dishonest, unethical and illegal things. They even had internal memos about doing these things like the famous "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" memo. In order to describe these charges as you have one must have a severe lack of information or an equally severe bias. EDIT - Downvote away, without a thoughtful response it is the equivalent of a throwing a tantrum.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> IBM and Microsoft weren't dethroned until roughly a decade later, so it's a real stretch to claim any kind of causal relationship. Microsoft, strictly speaking, still hasn't been dethroned, it's just the market in which it has its monopoly has itself become less important in the grand scheme of things. OTOH, it became less important because of other markets to which the government action prevented it from extending it's monopoly, which pretty clearly shows the relevance of the government action. Likewise, the IBM antitrust action is what created the boom in independent comouter software and services businesses, which directly led to IBM being dethroned because software commoditized the computers running it.

smitherfield 10y ago
>> IBM and Microsoft weren't dethroned until roughly a decade later, so it's a real stretch to claim any kind of causal relationship. > Microsoft, strictly speaking, still hasn't been dethroned, it's just the market in which it has its monopoly has itself become less important in the grand scheme of things. This is literally my next sentence? > OTOH, it became less important because of other markets to which the government action prevented it from extending it's monopoly, which pretty clearly shows the relevance of the government action. Smartphones? Somebody should tell Nokia. The only one whose actions prevented them extending their monopoly to that area was Steve Ballmer. (Or Steve Jobs — six of one Steve, half a dozen of the other). > Likewise, the IBM antitrust action is what created the boom in independent comouter software and services businesses, which directly led to IBM being dethroned because software commoditized the computers running it. Patently absurd. IBM's fate was sealed a few months after the start of the suit, when Digital introduced its PDP-11 minicomputer, and over the next 13 years, along with others, e.g. Seymour Cray at the high end, proceeded to disprove the DoJ's case in real time, taking huge amounts of market share away from IBM's mainframes the old-fashioned way, by offering a superior product at a (much) lower price. It was on Digital's machines, not mainframes, that software publishing (such as ...AT&T's Unix) first became a major industry. Al Gore's representations about the internet weren't really all that bad by politician standards, but to claim John Mitchell[1] invented software development is a new one. Around the time the DoJ dropped its case against IBM, they committed accidental suicide when they released the PC, with someone else's (Intel 8088) proprietary chips and, even more egregiously, someone else's proprietary operating system (DOS, by you-guessed-it), which enabled everyone and their brother to make their own, cut-price copies, and, adding insult to injury, giving their erstwhile chip and OS vendors gazillion-dollar licensing bonanzas that IBM never saw a penny of. This was IBM's own dumb idea, not John Mitchell's. — [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Mitchell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Mitchell
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  I think you're confusing an absolute hermetic market monopoly with anti-trust law. Anti-trust law doesn't require a total monopoly. It requires evidence of monopolistic practices which adversely affect consumers and customers. If you're negotiating, it's not a monopoly. If you're negotiating with a gorilla you can't afford to anger, or if you're being told what to buy and when and not negotiating at all, it's a monopoly. IBM, AT&T, MS all showed clear evidence of anti-trust breaches. The PDP-11 proves the point. DEC's PDP series was marketed as a Programmed Data Processor and not a Computer because the IBM had a lock on computer sales and rentals. Upper management in most of America would never authorise a computer purchase from anyone other than IBM. Marketing the series as a PDP meant technicians, scientists, and engineers could buy a computer through a side-channel that bypassed the usual corporate acquisition process. This wouldn't have been necessary if no lockdown existed. RCA, Honeywell, and others all tried to break into the computer market directly. Only CDC succeeded, and that was only because Cray gave CDC a lead in HPC that IBM couldn't match. For bread and butter corporate computing, IBM really did own the market.

nerfhammer 10y ago

> the conclusion to that tale does not go "and then, American telecommunications companies became well-known for their low prices and excellent customer service." You're kidding, right? Long distance calls during weekday hours used to cost like $6/minute, accounting for inflation. This improved rapidly after the breakup, not solely because of better technology, but because before that long distance was where AT&T was making most of its money and it had little reason to reduce costs or compete on pricing; i.e. it couldn't act competitively basically by definition.

smitherfield 10y ago
The 80's and 90's saw the introduction of digital signals, computerized switching and fiber-optic cable networks (all Bell Labs inventions), which significantly reduced the cost of landline calls in general, and in particular eliminated the additional complexity associated with providing long-distance service versus local. This was also the period in which landline started very rapidly losing market share to cell phones (also a Bell Labs invention[1]). Remember when they used to charge you a dollar per text message? Remember when they used to charge you an arm and a leg if you went over your allotted number of minutes? Remember how they still do if you go over your ration of gigabytes? Telecom has exactly the same razor/blade business model it did 10, 20 or 40 years ago. All that's changed is which services are the loss-leaders and which are the bleeding-edge, desirable features that they charge you a king's ransom for. Normal technological churn. — [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Phone_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Phone_System
- nerfhammer 10y ago
  Your thesis seemed to be that phone service was worse and more expensive due to AT&T being broken up, no? I feel that proposition is absurd and at odds with all available facts. You seem to be saying that competitive pressure has no effect on prices. I don't think that many people dropped their landlines for cell phones in the 80's, or even the 90's. I find it difficult to believe that fewer or no competitors would lead to the same or lower cell phone bills.

sqeaky 10y ago

You take a very dishonest stance on the charges against microsoft. They actively broke other people's software (Dr DOS) and made APIs that that only they could use which provided enormous, abusable and well abused competitive advantage. They actively interfered with standardization processes. They did a ton of dishonest, unethical and illegal things. They even had internal memos about doing these things like the famous "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" memo. In order to describe these charges as you have one must have a severe lack of information or an equally severe bias. EDIT - Downvote away, without a thoughtful response it is the equivalent of a throwing a tantrum.