4 ms·

> Microsoft was punished by the government, i.e. the law, not the market. I wholeheartedly disagree. There has been a huge active community rigorously battling

> Microsoft was punished by the government, i.e. the law, not the market. I wholeheartedly disagree. There has been a huge active community rigorously battling Microsoft's dominance offering alternative technologies and innovations. They deserve all the credit for maintaining the balance. Not government. > And how did the market forces punish Facebook for the colossal fuck-ups? Facebook has become less and less popular in recent years. Exactly because people got concerned with those colossal fuck-ups. So you see Facebook on the fence of those things and trying to improve their company ethics. > Saying that market forces punish predatory attitudes is beyond the pale. It's gaslighting and ignorance rolled into one. This is perhaps the popular opinion in Europe. Do you completely deny the existence of corrective forces? It seems to me a the US is doing a far better job at embracing them and has a lot of its innovative success to thank for it.

omnimus 7y ago
So not taxing companies would be the best solution? Let's not forget that tech giants often don't pay any taxes to eu countries. Like zero. This is real problem for system based around taxes. It also puts smaller players that have to pay at disadvantage. This is just way how to tax the giants. I thin soon this is going to be normal and probably even higher.
blub 7y ago
You must be using an unconventional definition of punish and corrective action. Microsoft was steamrolling over the huge community battling it, including Apple, Netscape, Sun and Linux. United States vs. Microsoft Corp forced them to behave, otherwise that huge community would have had to battle them from beyond the grave. Facebook is a very profitable behemoth. Where exactly is the punishment? Oh, they have to improve their company ethics.
- bartimus 7y ago
  But that's just not how it happened. That settlement was pretty much insignificant. First Amazon launched their online book store. Then Microsoft made a $150 million investment into Apple. Then Google launched its search innovation. Linux and Apache were already hugely successful with dominating the web. Java and PHP were kicking ASP's ass. https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2019/04/22/april-2019-web-server-survey.html https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2019/04/22/april-2019-web... Microsoft got so much distracted by certain market dominance they totally missed the uprising of the web players. Then Valve released their app store, Apple released the iPhone including its app store, Google released Android and Microsoft saw its dominance fall apart. The settlement didn't contribute to any of these developments. So what happened is - because Microsoft was so dominant - the competition needed to seriously up their innovative game to conquer their positions. If government would have intervened more strongly there wouldn't have been the need for stronger competition which would have resulted in less innovation. The market corrected itself.
  - blub 7y ago
    That settlement tied their hands competitively, made them think thrice before playing dirty and took the wind out of their sails. The settlement is what permitted Apple and Google to exist in the first place, so that they could launch the iPhone and Android. Amazon was utterly irrelevant back then, they were a book store FFS. The investment into Apple was happening in the middle of the anti-trust fight, for crying out loud. And Google was invented also during that time and would have gone exactly nowhere with an IE monopoly. MS crushed Linux on the desktop and they use it just like anybody else on the server. They even included it in Windows, Linux for them is not a competitor, it's a tool.
    - bartimus 7y ago
      > The settlement is what permitted Apple and Google to exist in the first place. How did it permit Google to exist? Google was running fine on IE. > Amazon was utterly irrelevant back then It was busy growing into the giant it is today. Nobody saw that coming back then. > And Google was invented also during that time and would have gone exactly nowhere with an IE monopoly. Why would an IE monopoly have prevented Google? Google came into existence exactly when Microsoft was dominating the browser market. Microsoft wasn't set out to dominate the web. They were pretty much embracing the dotcom boom (which included Google). They just wanted to make sure you would be browsing the web using their OS. > Linux for them is not a competitor, it's a tool. How is being a tool not a measure of success? We all use Windows as our tool. Linux was simply dominating its market. You paint a grim picture of a predatory company trying to dominate the world. Meanwhile Microsoft was exactly so successful because - on the one hand - they allowed other vendors to create hardware for their OS and - on the other hand - Windows was very much geared towards other companies building software on top of Windows. Sure, Microsoft was taking some protective measures to solidify their business. But what you're implying is that - without the antitrust case - they would've gone straight against their own business model that made them so successful. I will grant you the 150 million investment into Apple. That would perhaps not have happened without the antitrust case. Perhaps there wouldn't have been an iPhone. But what's often overlooked is how Steam was actually the first app store with auto-update features. Apple wasn't the only player in the mobile market. Android was already under development 4 years before the first iPhone came out. Google had already acquired Android 2 years before the first iPhone came out. It's all pure speculation. But the fact is there were plenty of corrective/competitive forces. Who knows what would've happened without the antitrust case. I'm not convinced it would have resulted in Microsoft being able to maintain its dominance.

omnimus 7y ago

So not taxing companies would be the best solution? Let's not forget that tech giants often don't pay any taxes to eu countries. Like zero. This is real problem for system based around taxes. It also puts smaller players that have to pay at disadvantage. This is just way how to tax the giants. I thin soon this is going to be normal and probably even higher.

blub 7y ago

You must be using an unconventional definition of punish and corrective action. Microsoft was steamrolling over the huge community battling it, including Apple, Netscape, Sun and Linux. United States vs. Microsoft Corp forced them to behave, otherwise that huge community would have had to battle them from beyond the grave. Facebook is a very profitable behemoth. Where exactly is the punishment? Oh, they have to improve their company ethics.

bartimus 7y ago
But that's just not how it happened. That settlement was pretty much insignificant. First Amazon launched their online book store. Then Microsoft made a $150 million investment into Apple. Then Google launched its search innovation. Linux and Apache were already hugely successful with dominating the web. Java and PHP were kicking ASP's ass. https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2019/04/22/april-2019-web-server-survey.html https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2019/04/22/april-2019-web... Microsoft got so much distracted by certain market dominance they totally missed the uprising of the web players. Then Valve released their app store, Apple released the iPhone including its app store, Google released Android and Microsoft saw its dominance fall apart. The settlement didn't contribute to any of these developments. So what happened is - because Microsoft was so dominant - the competition needed to seriously up their innovative game to conquer their positions. If government would have intervened more strongly there wouldn't have been the need for stronger competition which would have resulted in less innovation. The market corrected itself.
- blub 7y ago
  That settlement tied their hands competitively, made them think thrice before playing dirty and took the wind out of their sails. The settlement is what permitted Apple and Google to exist in the first place, so that they could launch the iPhone and Android. Amazon was utterly irrelevant back then, they were a book store FFS. The investment into Apple was happening in the middle of the anti-trust fight, for crying out loud. And Google was invented also during that time and would have gone exactly nowhere with an IE monopoly. MS crushed Linux on the desktop and they use it just like anybody else on the server. They even included it in Windows, Linux for them is not a competitor, it's a tool.
  - bartimus 7y ago
    > The settlement is what permitted Apple and Google to exist in the first place. How did it permit Google to exist? Google was running fine on IE. > Amazon was utterly irrelevant back then It was busy growing into the giant it is today. Nobody saw that coming back then. > And Google was invented also during that time and would have gone exactly nowhere with an IE monopoly. Why would an IE monopoly have prevented Google? Google came into existence exactly when Microsoft was dominating the browser market. Microsoft wasn't set out to dominate the web. They were pretty much embracing the dotcom boom (which included Google). They just wanted to make sure you would be browsing the web using their OS. > Linux for them is not a competitor, it's a tool. How is being a tool not a measure of success? We all use Windows as our tool. Linux was simply dominating its market. You paint a grim picture of a predatory company trying to dominate the world. Meanwhile Microsoft was exactly so successful because - on the one hand - they allowed other vendors to create hardware for their OS and - on the other hand - Windows was very much geared towards other companies building software on top of Windows. Sure, Microsoft was taking some protective measures to solidify their business. But what you're implying is that - without the antitrust case - they would've gone straight against their own business model that made them so successful. I will grant you the 150 million investment into Apple. That would perhaps not have happened without the antitrust case. Perhaps there wouldn't have been an iPhone. But what's often overlooked is how Steam was actually the first app store with auto-update features. Apple wasn't the only player in the mobile market. Android was already under development 4 years before the first iPhone came out. Google had already acquired Android 2 years before the first iPhone came out. It's all pure speculation. But the fact is there were plenty of corrective/competitive forces. Who knows what would've happened without the antitrust case. I'm not convinced it would have resulted in Microsoft being able to maintain its dominance.