4 ms·

Not OC, IMO MS should be forced to offer 2 different products, Office without Teams and Teams should be an independent product you would have to opt-in and buy.

Not OC, IMO MS should be forced to offer 2 different products, Office without Teams and Teams should be an independent product you would have to opt-in and buy. Then if Teams and Office communicate then this protocol should be open so anyone could use it.

Semaphor 6y ago
but what makes teams different from the rest of the suite? to me it sound like arguing that bundles should not exist.
- simion314 6y ago
  Yes, I think we need to investigate if bundles is a good thing for the world. I have an old memory from my childhood, in Romania during communism I went with my grandma to buy oil(or something like that) and if we wanted to buy that we were also forced to buy some other crap like pencils so the shop would get rid of old stock(I apologize if my memory is tricking me , maybe someone can confirm this I can't find anything on google with my search terms). So bundling feels to me dirty, I get forced into something I might not like. Maybe the actual problem is that big companies have a lot of money that they can spend on this products and offer them for free then make it impossible to create a fair competition. Would MS get the same Windows installs if the computers would come with the choice of different OSs )from what I read in most shops in the world options with alternatives are not present)
  - gruez 6y ago
    >I have an old memory from my childhood, in Romania during communism I went with my grandma to buy oil(or something like that) and if we wanted to buy that we were also forced to buy some other crap like pencils so the shop would get rid of old stock bundling of physical goods with bundling of digital goods isn't really comparable because the latter doesn't have any marginal cost. If you don't use it, nothing's being wasted. >So bundling feels to me dirty, I get forced into something I might not like. That's not really a problem with bundling per se. If I get amazon prime for free/fast shipping and it includes free prime video and twitch prime, I don't feel "forced" into using those services. What's happening in this case though, is that microsoft was apparently auto-installing teams, which is questionable but not something intrinsic with bundling. >Maybe the actual problem is that big companies have a lot of money that they can spend on this products and offer them for free then make it impossible to create a fair competition. Can't you make the same argument about any free service offered by a company? eg. free cloudflare making it harder for paid cdns to compete, or free git hosting by github/gitlab making ti hard for a paid service to compete?
    - simion314 6y ago
      About free GitHub, if GitHub financials would be independent and they can afford offering some free feature then I think is 100% fair, it would not be fair if GitHub would get money from Azure profits so they can offer everything for free so all competitors fail. When I buy something and get some extra free crap-ware, is that actually free? As an example some internet companies here would offer you as a free bonus antivirus software - is that free or it is paid from our money and maybe with our data ? Is Amazon Prime free stuff free or it is paid from your pocket but in an indirect way. The example from my memory was more about the felling I have when I think about that, is like when you buy a phone or some OS and some shit is already installed and you can't remove it,
      - Semaphor 6y ago
        > When I buy something and get some extra free crap-ware, is that actually free? As an example some internet companies here would offer you as a free bonus antivirus software - is that free or it is paid from our money and maybe with our data ? Is Amazon Prime free stuff free or it is paid from your pocket but in an indirect way. The following step is logical: ban all advertisement and outreach. Because that is paid in the same way.
        simion314 6y ago
        Is this solving unfair competition? My point was not to ban free stuff, it is to acknowledge that nothing is free and then prevent a big company to use money from market A to destroy competitors in market B - this would mean Google,Aplle,Microsoft needs to be split (this would maximize competition but it will not be popular in the short term even with the extreme free market evangelists)
        Semaphor 6y ago
        While I think (note: without thinking too deeply about it, just my general impression, a pretty weakly held opinion) that splitting those up would be a net plus, I was specifically replying to the quoted part.

Semaphor 6y ago

but what makes teams different from the rest of the suite? to me it sound like arguing that bundles should not exist.

simion314 6y ago
Yes, I think we need to investigate if bundles is a good thing for the world. I have an old memory from my childhood, in Romania during communism I went with my grandma to buy oil(or something like that) and if we wanted to buy that we were also forced to buy some other crap like pencils so the shop would get rid of old stock(I apologize if my memory is tricking me , maybe someone can confirm this I can't find anything on google with my search terms). So bundling feels to me dirty, I get forced into something I might not like. Maybe the actual problem is that big companies have a lot of money that they can spend on this products and offer them for free then make it impossible to create a fair competition. Would MS get the same Windows installs if the computers would come with the choice of different OSs )from what I read in most shops in the world options with alternatives are not present)
- gruez 6y ago
  >I have an old memory from my childhood, in Romania during communism I went with my grandma to buy oil(or something like that) and if we wanted to buy that we were also forced to buy some other crap like pencils so the shop would get rid of old stock bundling of physical goods with bundling of digital goods isn't really comparable because the latter doesn't have any marginal cost. If you don't use it, nothing's being wasted. >So bundling feels to me dirty, I get forced into something I might not like. That's not really a problem with bundling per se. If I get amazon prime for free/fast shipping and it includes free prime video and twitch prime, I don't feel "forced" into using those services. What's happening in this case though, is that microsoft was apparently auto-installing teams, which is questionable but not something intrinsic with bundling. >Maybe the actual problem is that big companies have a lot of money that they can spend on this products and offer them for free then make it impossible to create a fair competition. Can't you make the same argument about any free service offered by a company? eg. free cloudflare making it harder for paid cdns to compete, or free git hosting by github/gitlab making ti hard for a paid service to compete?
  - simion314 6y ago
    About free GitHub, if GitHub financials would be independent and they can afford offering some free feature then I think is 100% fair, it would not be fair if GitHub would get money from Azure profits so they can offer everything for free so all competitors fail. When I buy something and get some extra free crap-ware, is that actually free? As an example some internet companies here would offer you as a free bonus antivirus software - is that free or it is paid from our money and maybe with our data ? Is Amazon Prime free stuff free or it is paid from your pocket but in an indirect way. The example from my memory was more about the felling I have when I think about that, is like when you buy a phone or some OS and some shit is already installed and you can't remove it,
    - Semaphor 6y ago
      > When I buy something and get some extra free crap-ware, is that actually free? As an example some internet companies here would offer you as a free bonus antivirus software - is that free or it is paid from our money and maybe with our data ? Is Amazon Prime free stuff free or it is paid from your pocket but in an indirect way. The following step is logical: ban all advertisement and outreach. Because that is paid in the same way.
      - simion314 6y ago
        Is this solving unfair competition? My point was not to ban free stuff, it is to acknowledge that nothing is free and then prevent a big company to use money from market A to destroy competitors in market B - this would mean Google,Aplle,Microsoft needs to be split (this would maximize competition but it will not be popular in the short term even with the extreme free market evangelists)
        Semaphor 6y ago
        While I think (note: without thinking too deeply about it, just my general impression, a pretty weakly held opinion) that splitting those up would be a net plus, I was specifically replying to the quoted part.