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It’s not that “everything revolves around corporations for me”, it’s that every time I have ever criticized a corporation to a self-proclaimed libertarian, it i
by tombert 26d ago
It’s not that “everything revolves around corporations for me”, it’s that every time I have ever criticized a corporation to a self-proclaimed libertarian, it it always deflected and turned into “well actually this is just the governments fault because…”
Walter did this by taking the frankly idiotic position that Standard Oil actually wasn’t a monopoly, and you took the less-idiotic-but-still-bad position that Microsoft’s terrible business was actually just a consequence of government.
- krupan 26d agoYou put forth Microsoft as a monopoly, not necessarily a bad business.
- tombert 26d agoSure, a monopoly (as determined by the courts, albeit briefly) and found to be engaging in anti-competitive practices. It wasn't some vague "copyright" thing that made Microsoft do the AARD code, or make it difficult/impossible to install Netscape on Windows.
- krupan 26d agoI feel like we're really getting off into the weeds here. I think the original question was, could they have achieved their monopoly without government help? I still think no. Their product, software, is given more protection than other types of products by copyright laws. If you sell a hamburger you can't copyright it. If you sell a circuit board you can't copyright it. PC clones kept IBM from becoming a monopoly at the exact same time Microsoft was becoming a monopoly. Why? Government protection. Microsoft even sued a guy named Mike Rowe for selling software (mikerowesoft.com). That's insane.