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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 G

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.
gruez 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. So what you're saying is that if github is offering it for free, and they themselves are profitable, that's fine, but if the company is being subsidized by microsoft it's not fine? Why draw an arbitrary distinction at the corporate level? Furthermore, if microsoft teams is being developed under the team/organization as the rest of office, is that fine then? Also, what about github gists? It's a free pastebin that has zero connection to the main site. You can post with an account or anonymously. Either way it's free, and there aren't any benefits conferred to you for having a github pro subscription. Is github being anti-competitive by offering it? Are they putting all the other pastebin websites out of business? If anything it's worse than teams because with teams you at least have to pay for the bundle to access it. >Is Amazon Prime free stuff free or it is paid from your pocket but in an indirect way. I'm not sure how prime video (included with amazon prime) can ever be profitable on its own. They spend millions (billions?) on original programming. How can you ever recoup that by some "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, You're probably talking about software vendors who pay OEMs to have their software pre-installed on their phones. In this case the software vendor hopes they can recoup the initial cost somehow (eg. by showing ads, collecting data, or upselling the customer to a paid subscription). This is very different than what microsoft's doing. There's no ads in teams. It's probably not spying on you (and even if it did microsoft could already do that on its own). There isn't teams premium either. In short, the incentive structure is completely different.
- simion314 6y ago
  Maybe my solution is not good, do you have a better one or you think there is no problem here and giants can abuse their money to subsidize some stuff not because they want to be nice but because they want to win a market that can later exploit or because they want to kill possible competition. A similar problem is happening when giants buy smaller competitors and close them down.

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.

gruez 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. So what you're saying is that if github is offering it for free, and they themselves are profitable, that's fine, but if the company is being subsidized by microsoft it's not fine? Why draw an arbitrary distinction at the corporate level? Furthermore, if microsoft teams is being developed under the team/organization as the rest of office, is that fine then? Also, what about github gists? It's a free pastebin that has zero connection to the main site. You can post with an account or anonymously. Either way it's free, and there aren't any benefits conferred to you for having a github pro subscription. Is github being anti-competitive by offering it? Are they putting all the other pastebin websites out of business? If anything it's worse than teams because with teams you at least have to pay for the bundle to access it. >Is Amazon Prime free stuff free or it is paid from your pocket but in an indirect way. I'm not sure how prime video (included with amazon prime) can ever be profitable on its own. They spend millions (billions?) on original programming. How can you ever recoup that by some "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, You're probably talking about software vendors who pay OEMs to have their software pre-installed on their phones. In this case the software vendor hopes they can recoup the initial cost somehow (eg. by showing ads, collecting data, or upselling the customer to a paid subscription). This is very different than what microsoft's doing. There's no ads in teams. It's probably not spying on you (and even if it did microsoft could already do that on its own). There isn't teams premium either. In short, the incentive structure is completely different.

simion314 6y ago
Maybe my solution is not good, do you have a better one or you think there is no problem here and giants can abuse their money to subsidize some stuff not because they want to be nice but because they want to win a market that can later exploit or because they want to kill possible competition. A similar problem is happening when giants buy smaller competitors and close them down.