6 ms·

80% does not a monopoly make. Microsoft was in an entirely different position at the time.

throwawaykf 13y ago
Percentage of market share is not a clear indication of monopoly. From what I could find, 50% is typically the bare minimum to warrant consideration, and 70 - 75% will get more serious scrutiny. Also, it differs from country to country. In the UK, Tesco was investigated even though it had a market share of only 30%. I also recall reading one of the EU's regulators (was it Joaquin Almunia?) say that (paraphrasing) "we start sniffing around when any one party gets a market share north of 60%." Unfortunately, I cannot find that article.
- fauigerzigerk 13y ago
  >Percentage of market share is not a clear indication of monopoly True, and the reason is that a 30% UK-wide or a 50% Europe-wide market share can easily turn out to be a 100% market share in many local markets. Tesco defended itself by saying that 98% of consumers have access to five different super market chains within a drive time radius of 30 minutes. Make that a more realistic 10 minutes and the picture changes dramatically.
alexeisadeski3 13y ago
How can anything other that 99% market share even be considered a monopoly? If it's 80% or 90% then there is obviously choice and thus no monopoly. Anti trust is such bunk...
- aidenn0 13y ago
  Here's an example: Let's imagine a hypothetical world where Company A owns 80% of the smartphone market and the rest is divided between the also-rans. Now imagine that app developers can't profitably make a 1st rate app without getting the income from company A's app store (But can port the app to other OSes for extra income). If company A starts to use this situation to make it harder to port apps to other companies OSes via strongarm tactics, then company A is abusing its monopoly position of being the only profitable way to make an app. Today's world is nothing like that, but it's an example of how near-total marketshare is not necessary for anti-trust to come into play. There is a certain point at which you have a large enough market share, that certain other players in the market must deal with you to get the volume needed to compete, particularly in high-volume, high-upfront cost industries (which many types of software qualify as).
- sbuk 13y ago
  Monopoly is not antitrust. Abusing control of a market is. A monopoly (which is usually considered to be dominance if a market place) is not itself unlawful.
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    Anti trust is the legislation policing monopolies, at least in the US, and it is such legislation which I consider bunk.
    - sbuk 13y ago
      Antitrust laws exist to enable greater competition by stopping businesses behaving in an anticompetative manner. They don't necessarily exist for "policing monoploies" anywhere in the world. >"and it is such legislation which I consider bunk" Why? Don't you think that Microsoft should have been reprimanded over their abuse of the OS market to gain control of the browser market? Or is it because it's being held over $favorite_faceless_corp like the proverbial sword of Damocles?
      - throwawaykf 13y ago
        To be fair, Microsoft also created a browser that, for its time, is pretty widely accepted (even around here!) as being much better than the Netscape counterpart. So while they did throw their weight around, it's not clear that their browser dominance was purely because of their OS monopoly. There were many other ways that Microsoft was leveraging its monopoly which deserved antitrust scrutiny, but I think bundling a browser was the wrong thing to be prosecuted for.
        sbuk 13y ago
        I agree totally that IE 4 was a browser ahead of it's time, however Microsoft were shown to have needlesly integrated it into their OS and then told OEMs that their Windows licenses would be revoked if they sold PC with Navigator pre-installed. I'd say they were lucky not to be broken up!
- lmm 13y ago
  I once saw an economics paper finding that if the top four players in a given market have more than 60% marketshare between them, they'll naturally act as a cartel. Ergo preserving an effective free market for consumers requires preventing that circumstance.
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    Assuming the consequent...

Percentage of market share is not a clear indication of monopoly. From what I could find, 50% is typically the bare minimum to warrant consideration, and 70 - 75% will get more serious scrutiny. Also, it differs from country to country. In the UK, Tesco was investigated even though it had a market share of only 30%. I also recall reading one of the EU's regulators (was it Joaquin Almunia?) say that (paraphrasing) "we start sniffing around when any one party gets a market share north of 60%." Unfortunately, I cannot find that article.

fauigerzigerk 13y ago
>Percentage of market share is not a clear indication of monopoly True, and the reason is that a 30% UK-wide or a 50% Europe-wide market share can easily turn out to be a 100% market share in many local markets. Tesco defended itself by saying that 98% of consumers have access to five different super market chains within a drive time radius of 30 minutes. Make that a more realistic 10 minutes and the picture changes dramatically.

alexeisadeski3 13y ago

How can anything other that 99% market share even be considered a monopoly? If it's 80% or 90% then there is obviously choice and thus no monopoly. Anti trust is such bunk...

aidenn0 13y ago
Here's an example: Let's imagine a hypothetical world where Company A owns 80% of the smartphone market and the rest is divided between the also-rans. Now imagine that app developers can't profitably make a 1st rate app without getting the income from company A's app store (But can port the app to other OSes for extra income). If company A starts to use this situation to make it harder to port apps to other companies OSes via strongarm tactics, then company A is abusing its monopoly position of being the only profitable way to make an app. Today's world is nothing like that, but it's an example of how near-total marketshare is not necessary for anti-trust to come into play. There is a certain point at which you have a large enough market share, that certain other players in the market must deal with you to get the volume needed to compete, particularly in high-volume, high-upfront cost industries (which many types of software qualify as).
sbuk 13y ago
Monopoly is not antitrust. Abusing control of a market is. A monopoly (which is usually considered to be dominance if a market place) is not itself unlawful.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Anti trust is the legislation policing monopolies, at least in the US, and it is such legislation which I consider bunk.
  - sbuk 13y ago
    Antitrust laws exist to enable greater competition by stopping businesses behaving in an anticompetative manner. They don't necessarily exist for "policing monoploies" anywhere in the world. >"and it is such legislation which I consider bunk" Why? Don't you think that Microsoft should have been reprimanded over their abuse of the OS market to gain control of the browser market? Or is it because it's being held over $favorite_faceless_corp like the proverbial sword of Damocles?
    - throwawaykf 13y ago
      To be fair, Microsoft also created a browser that, for its time, is pretty widely accepted (even around here!) as being much better than the Netscape counterpart. So while they did throw their weight around, it's not clear that their browser dominance was purely because of their OS monopoly. There were many other ways that Microsoft was leveraging its monopoly which deserved antitrust scrutiny, but I think bundling a browser was the wrong thing to be prosecuted for.
      - sbuk 13y ago
        I agree totally that IE 4 was a browser ahead of it's time, however Microsoft were shown to have needlesly integrated it into their OS and then told OEMs that their Windows licenses would be revoked if they sold PC with Navigator pre-installed. I'd say they were lucky not to be broken up!
lmm 13y ago
I once saw an economics paper finding that if the top four players in a given market have more than 60% marketshare between them, they'll naturally act as a cartel. Ergo preserving an effective free market for consumers requires preventing that circumstance.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Assuming the consequent...