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Creating a closed product is not anti-competitive behavior, merely consumer-hostile. Attempting to close others' otherwise open products (e.g. PC hardware) thr
by mmt 17y ago
Creating a closed product is not anti-competitive behavior, merely consumer-hostile.
Attempting to close others' otherwise open products (e.g. PC hardware) through licensing requirements, which require payment regardless of whether or not ones software is actually installed or not, is anti-competitive behavior.
Granted, this distinction may not be compelling to the average consumer, but I contend it's more relevant to the average hacker.
- taitems 17y agoMy beef is more so with Apple's DRM chips installed in their accessories now which has negated all my previously bought Apple and non-Apple accessories, forcing me to purchase new, Apple authorised accessories all over again. One could defend it as time saving on backwards compatability (like forcing everyone to upgrade to IE8 from IE6 to use a website's "cool" new feature), but I think its as simple as typical Apple money-grubbing. It's not illegal, it's not exactly unethical, it's just rude.
- mmt 17y agoLike I said, I don't disagree that such behavior is consumer-hostile. I don't know that they're guilty or innocent of it, just that it's not particularly relevant to the topic of anti-competition. However, I'm quite confident the market will take care of that sort of misbehavior quite naturally.