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Regulations only help the current top stay that way by creating arbitrary barriers to enter competition and politicizes the whole thing, leading to lobby instea

Regulations only help the current top stay that way by creating arbitrary barriers to enter competition and politicizes the whole thing, leading to lobby instead of research and development. Microsoft is not a monopoly. Neither is Google, Facebook etc. They are dominant in their niches. Use Linux, use firefox, use duckduckgo, use mastedon, use Rumble, odyssey, etc. The only reason they stay dominant is because instead of dropping their usage, people complain, point fingers and still use them. Because at the end of the day its a feeling of entitlement instead of being proactive supporting the better alternatives. The free market will solve the issue so long we protect freedom in the market.

ziddoap 5y ago
>Use Linux, use firefox, use duckduckgo, use mastedon, use Rumble, odyssey, etc. What about the rest of the owl? Many people/businesses can't just swap over to Linux on a whim. I can go through the rest of your examples one by one, and explain why many people/businesses don't have those as realistic options, if you'd like. But it seems excessive.
deelowe 5y ago
> Microsoft is not a monopoly. Neither is Google, Facebook etc. They are dominant in their niches. This is why the more appropriate term is anti trust. Businesses don't need to be monopolies what matters is whether their position is dominant.
KoftaBob 5y ago
Before I spend time writing a rebuttal to this, I’d like to ask, are you genuinely interested in seeking a better understanding of this topic, or are you already convinced in your view and not interested?
FuckButtons 5y ago
This is a pretty silly argument. It’s not the consumers fault that a monopoly exists.
diob 5y ago
This is a weird view, albeit a common one among die hard free market lovers (I've even heard the "dominant in their niches" thing verbatim, although I doubt folks could expand on what that means). The typical individual outside of our profession is not choosing a browser because of a feeling of entitlement. They have maybe 5 hours of free time in their day outside of work / commuting / kids / etc. I doubt they have any idea beyond "this browser works, is fast" or heck "it's installed" as a reason to choose their browser, especially if it's a mobile browser. Free markets do not solve the issues of monopolies. You don't even have to look to history or the current market to understand that. Monopolies are an unfortunate natural tendency that the market heads towards when uninhibited, because they afford the maximum amount of profit. It also, at least until the monopoly hits a certain point, affords the max amount of efficiency and quality to the consumer. Unfortunately, by the time the monopoly takes over, there remains no real "choice" left for the consumer to run to. At that point, the profit maximization takes over completely and quality begins to drop. After all, the incentive is just to be better than the "others" who remain, who likely have almost no resources (and moreover the monopoly probably introduces proprietary standards to make remaining alternatives worse). At that point, we get stagnation, which I would argue the world has seen a good chunk of in recent years. Price fixing, collusion, all too common among the top (see the recent controversy with Google and Facebook working together). Why fight for the "free market" as you call it, when we can work together to rest comfortably?
toast0 5y ago
> They are dominant in their niches. This is the essence of anti-trust law (commonly refered to as anti-monopoly law), if a company is dominant in a market (or niche), they must refrain from certain anti-competitive practices which would help them to gain dominance in another market. The law does not prohibit dominance in a market, nor does it prohibit gaining dominance in another market, and while some anti-competitive practices are generally prohibited, others are only prohibited in the context of a market dominant company gaining dominance in another market. In general, pricing well below costs is prohibited as dumping, but these cases are tricky. When pricing well below cost is in a new market for the company and the old dominant market is subsidizing the costs, there's more room for scrutiny. Enforcement on dumping is light though, because of perceived customer gains when a subsidized product has no direct cost. Ordinarily, bundling products is acceptable, but forcing a new market product to be purchased with a market dominant product is scrutinized. Mergers and acquisitions are generally ok, but market dominant companies may need to show that competition remains after the merger.

ziddoap 5y ago

>Use Linux, use firefox, use duckduckgo, use mastedon, use Rumble, odyssey, etc. What about the rest of the owl? Many people/businesses can't just swap over to Linux on a whim. I can go through the rest of your examples one by one, and explain why many people/businesses don't have those as realistic options, if you'd like. But it seems excessive.

deelowe 5y ago

> Microsoft is not a monopoly. Neither is Google, Facebook etc. They are dominant in their niches. This is why the more appropriate term is anti trust. Businesses don't need to be monopolies what matters is whether their position is dominant.

KoftaBob 5y ago

Before I spend time writing a rebuttal to this, I’d like to ask, are you genuinely interested in seeking a better understanding of this topic, or are you already convinced in your view and not interested?

FuckButtons 5y ago

This is a pretty silly argument. It’s not the consumers fault that a monopoly exists.

diob 5y ago

This is a weird view, albeit a common one among die hard free market lovers (I've even heard the "dominant in their niches" thing verbatim, although I doubt folks could expand on what that means). The typical individual outside of our profession is not choosing a browser because of a feeling of entitlement. They have maybe 5 hours of free time in their day outside of work / commuting / kids / etc. I doubt they have any idea beyond "this browser works, is fast" or heck "it's installed" as a reason to choose their browser, especially if it's a mobile browser. Free markets do not solve the issues of monopolies. You don't even have to look to history or the current market to understand that. Monopolies are an unfortunate natural tendency that the market heads towards when uninhibited, because they afford the maximum amount of profit. It also, at least until the monopoly hits a certain point, affords the max amount of efficiency and quality to the consumer. Unfortunately, by the time the monopoly takes over, there remains no real "choice" left for the consumer to run to. At that point, the profit maximization takes over completely and quality begins to drop. After all, the incentive is just to be better than the "others" who remain, who likely have almost no resources (and moreover the monopoly probably introduces proprietary standards to make remaining alternatives worse). At that point, we get stagnation, which I would argue the world has seen a good chunk of in recent years. Price fixing, collusion, all too common among the top (see the recent controversy with Google and Facebook working together). Why fight for the "free market" as you call it, when we can work together to rest comfortably?

toast0 5y ago

> They are dominant in their niches. This is the essence of anti-trust law (commonly refered to as anti-monopoly law), if a company is dominant in a market (or niche), they must refrain from certain anti-competitive practices which would help them to gain dominance in another market. The law does not prohibit dominance in a market, nor does it prohibit gaining dominance in another market, and while some anti-competitive practices are generally prohibited, others are only prohibited in the context of a market dominant company gaining dominance in another market. In general, pricing well below costs is prohibited as dumping, but these cases are tricky. When pricing well below cost is in a new market for the company and the old dominant market is subsidizing the costs, there's more room for scrutiny. Enforcement on dumping is light though, because of perceived customer gains when a subsidized product has no direct cost. Ordinarily, bundling products is acceptable, but forcing a new market product to be purchased with a market dominant product is scrutinized. Mergers and acquisitions are generally ok, but market dominant companies may need to show that competition remains after the merger.