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In the 1980s there were many operating systems for PCs: Commodore had one, Amiga, etc. PCs became important for white-collar work with the result most prospecti

In the 1980s there were many operating systems for PCs: Commodore had one, Amiga, etc. PCs became important for white-collar work with the result most prospective white-collar workers would learn how to use an OS to make it easier to find a job. Which OS did most of them learn how to use? Well, if you are a prospective software dev in 2019 which version-control software do you learn how to use to make yourself more attractive to prospective employers? git of course -- even if you think Mercurial or Fossil is better -- because git is the one most employers use. And employers will standardize on git partly because that is what their prospective employees are most likely to know. Same thing happened with personal-computer OSes in the 1980s and 1990s with the result that by 1997 Microsoft Windows had 95% or 98% of the market. (Apple was in danger of going out of business in 1997 when Microsoft publicly invested $150 million in Apple stock. Microsoft's motivation here was probably to make Microsoft look less like a monopoly to governments, reporters and voters.) Is it not possible that this mechanism by which the most popular product is the most attractive one (to prospective employees and employers in our example; in another example it might be people wanting to make phone calls) -- thereby making that product even more popular -- could create what grandparent referred to as a "natural monopoly" even in a completely unregulated market? You might reply that Microsoft could not have achieved its monopoly without the enforcement of copyright laws by governments. Well, consider an alternative reality in which there is no copyright law, but Windows is distributed only with new PCs and runs inside a cryptographically-secure enclave. In other words, there are purely technical ways to achieve the same business goal that was in actuality achieved by copyright law.

scarface74 7y ago
Apple was in danger of going out of business in 1997 when Microsoft publicly invested $150 million in Apple stock. Microsoft's motivation here was probably to make Microsoft look less like a monopoly to governments, reporters and voters This is apocryphal and not what happened. At the time that Microsoft invested $150M in Apple, Apple had $4 billion in the bank through loans. Also, Apple turned around and in that same quarter, paid $100 million to buy out Power Computing’s Mac license. Apple also continued to lose money for the next two or three years. The net $50 million wouldn’t have made a difference.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Apple was abnormal among tech companies back then for having a huge cash stockpile. These days, they have billions just because they have too much money to know what to do with. But back in the 90s, they had billions in cash & short term investments even though the whole company was only worth a few billion. Of course, you could argue that meant that the market was very pessimistic about their business and therefore they were very shaky. But they were very different from a typical struggling business that is levered up and has to make the vigorish every month.
pitaj 7y ago
> Is it not possible that this mechanism by which the most popular product is the most attractive one (to prospective employees and employers in our example; in another example it might be people wanting to make phone calls) -- thereby making that product even more popular -- could create what grandparent referred to as a "natural monopoly" even in a completely unregulated market? You must realize that you're describing a free product, right? The way people organize around free things is totally different to something they pay for. People are incentivized to not pay for bad service when better options exist. And the worse the service or the higher the price, the higher the incentive. Entrepreneurs are incentivized to enter a market under those conditions. The more opportunity they see, the more likely they are to enter the market. The only way to prevent competition is to provide such good service that there's no room for competition (which I can't see a problem with), or to raise the barrier to entry with state policies. > You might reply that Microsoft could not have achieved its monopoly without the enforcement of copyright laws by governments. Well, consider an alternative reality in which there is no copyright law, but Windows is distributed only with new PCs and runs inside a cryptographically-secure enclave. I don't think what you're describing would stop anything, but it sure would make using a computer more onerous and likely push away a lot of customers. > In other words, there are purely technical ways to achieve the same business goal that was in actuality achieved by copyright law. There just aren't the same tools available to firms when software can be freely modified and redistributed.
- deleted 7y ago
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scarface74 7y ago

Apple was in danger of going out of business in 1997 when Microsoft publicly invested $150 million in Apple stock. Microsoft's motivation here was probably to make Microsoft look less like a monopoly to governments, reporters and voters This is apocryphal and not what happened. At the time that Microsoft invested $150M in Apple, Apple had $4 billion in the bank through loans. Also, Apple turned around and in that same quarter, paid $100 million to buy out Power Computing’s Mac license. Apple also continued to lose money for the next two or three years. The net $50 million wouldn’t have made a difference.

perl4ever 7y ago
Apple was abnormal among tech companies back then for having a huge cash stockpile. These days, they have billions just because they have too much money to know what to do with. But back in the 90s, they had billions in cash & short term investments even though the whole company was only worth a few billion. Of course, you could argue that meant that the market was very pessimistic about their business and therefore they were very shaky. But they were very different from a typical struggling business that is levered up and has to make the vigorish every month.

pitaj 7y ago

> Is it not possible that this mechanism by which the most popular product is the most attractive one (to prospective employees and employers in our example; in another example it might be people wanting to make phone calls) -- thereby making that product even more popular -- could create what grandparent referred to as a "natural monopoly" even in a completely unregulated market? You must realize that you're describing a free product, right? The way people organize around free things is totally different to something they pay for. People are incentivized to not pay for bad service when better options exist. And the worse the service or the higher the price, the higher the incentive. Entrepreneurs are incentivized to enter a market under those conditions. The more opportunity they see, the more likely they are to enter the market. The only way to prevent competition is to provide such good service that there's no room for competition (which I can't see a problem with), or to raise the barrier to entry with state policies. > You might reply that Microsoft could not have achieved its monopoly without the enforcement of copyright laws by governments. Well, consider an alternative reality in which there is no copyright law, but Windows is distributed only with new PCs and runs inside a cryptographically-secure enclave. I don't think what you're describing would stop anything, but it sure would make using a computer more onerous and likely push away a lot of customers. > In other words, there are purely technical ways to achieve the same business goal that was in actuality achieved by copyright law. There just aren't the same tools available to firms when software can be freely modified and redistributed.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]