> Gates’ fortune came at the expense of the rest of us This is the essential truth about Gates and Microsoft. Microsoft did not advance computing; it suffocate

> Gates’ fortune came at the expense of the rest of us This is the essential truth about Gates and Microsoft. Microsoft did not advance computing; it suffocated it and made it into a grey, boring, feudal kingdom, at least through the 90s, driven by Gates ruthless mindset of monopolisation and 'embrace, extend, extinguish'. And even now we still have to pay the 'Microsoft tax' on every personal computer we buy, even if, like many here on HN do, we immediately replace Windows with a Free Software operating system (usually some variant of GNU/Linux). Whatever the argument about Gates' philanthropy (and personally, I remain highly sceptical around that) it can't be denied that the way he made his money made the world poorer, to his personal profit.