3 ms·

I'm not arguing whether Microsoft's behavior is good or bad (that's a long, subjective, discussion) - I'm arguing that from a legal point of view it's not clear

I'm not arguing whether Microsoft's behavior is good or bad (that's a long, subjective, discussion) - I'm arguing that from a legal point of view it's not clear cut that it's the same situation, as was suggested. Company size is for example not considered (generally anyway) as relevant for whether a company has a monopoly/market dominance or not. This seems to be forgotten, and it seems few cares about why the definition is what it is (or even what it really is).

hilbert42 3y ago
"I'm arguing that from a legal point of view it's not clear cut that it's the same situation, as was suggested" Sorting out technicalities is the job of regulators and government. It shouldn't matter a damn if the situation is different. What's common and ongoing is that Microsoft's monopolistic practices are still in place and small and medium businesses are still being hurt, and users are still being taken advantage of. We know what needs to be done to reign in Big Tech. If current laws aren't strong enough then it's Government's job to legislate to fix and strengthen them. It has yet to do that, and that it hasn't is the key problem. What's needed is new law that makes employees just as responsible as the corporation would be, they, after all, are the ones who make the decisions. If those who work for Big Tech knew their actions could easily land them in the slammer then we'd have a revolution in good behavior overnight.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  > Sorting out technicalities is the job of regulators and government. It shouldn't matter a damn if the situation is different. What's common and ongoing is that Microsoft's monopolistic practices are still in place and small and medium businesses are still being hurt, and users are still being taken advantage of. It should matter in this context because this entire thread chain was started with a reference to the 90s era monopoly challenges against MS. If the situation isn't the same then the old monopoly challenge really doesn't matter, sure it was the same corporation but it was different leadership with different employees working in entirely different industry and time. We won't fix big tech with regulations and laws. That's hard enough when you're going after large corporations with massive legal and lobbying teams, see the cigarette and oil industries for example. When its a tech industry that changes on the order or months or years rather than decades, regulators have no chance of predicting what coning innovations they need to plan for or closing loopholes in regulation written for a fairly unique industry. Sometimes it doesn't work for us to go crawling to big governments to drop the hammer and save us with yet more regulation that no one has time to read or comprehend. Big tech only has the power it does because we all choose to use their products. If we really cared, consumers could make real change without regulators by simply telling big tech to screw off and opting our of using their products.

hilbert42 3y ago

"I'm arguing that from a legal point of view it's not clear cut that it's the same situation, as was suggested" Sorting out technicalities is the job of regulators and government. It shouldn't matter a damn if the situation is different. What's common and ongoing is that Microsoft's monopolistic practices are still in place and small and medium businesses are still being hurt, and users are still being taken advantage of. We know what needs to be done to reign in Big Tech. If current laws aren't strong enough then it's Government's job to legislate to fix and strengthen them. It has yet to do that, and that it hasn't is the key problem. What's needed is new law that makes employees just as responsible as the corporation would be, they, after all, are the ones who make the decisions. If those who work for Big Tech knew their actions could easily land them in the slammer then we'd have a revolution in good behavior overnight.

_heimdall 3y ago
> Sorting out technicalities is the job of regulators and government. It shouldn't matter a damn if the situation is different. What's common and ongoing is that Microsoft's monopolistic practices are still in place and small and medium businesses are still being hurt, and users are still being taken advantage of. It should matter in this context because this entire thread chain was started with a reference to the 90s era monopoly challenges against MS. If the situation isn't the same then the old monopoly challenge really doesn't matter, sure it was the same corporation but it was different leadership with different employees working in entirely different industry and time. We won't fix big tech with regulations and laws. That's hard enough when you're going after large corporations with massive legal and lobbying teams, see the cigarette and oil industries for example. When its a tech industry that changes on the order or months or years rather than decades, regulators have no chance of predicting what coning innovations they need to plan for or closing loopholes in regulation written for a fairly unique industry. Sometimes it doesn't work for us to go crawling to big governments to drop the hammer and save us with yet more regulation that no one has time to read or comprehend. Big tech only has the power it does because we all choose to use their products. If we really cared, consumers could make real change without regulators by simply telling big tech to screw off and opting our of using their products.