I believe that greed is simply a motivating force - whether for good or evil. The secret to harnessing its true power for good, rather than evil, is to remove any positive incentives for evil. Currently, the world has far more than the natural amount of evil in it - currently, evil is massively subsidised. The military industrial complex is a small (but obvious) example of how evil behaviour gets subsidised. In the free market, war is simply not profitable - this is why corporations nowadays require the government to pay for wars. A company like Halliburton could never afford to go to war in Iraq - but they can afford to spend a few hundred thousand dollars on a politician's election campaign, and the politician will make the taxpayers pay for both the war and Halliburton's fees. Naturally, companies would have to provide value to their customers to make money. When there's a government collecting taxes and pooling them in a massive treasury, that changes everything - corrupt businesses will line up with the sole purpose of extracting money from the treasury. Think of Enron, Halliburton, Fanny May, the entire banking system, Blackwater, most of the medical insurance system, and the Federal Reserve (which is a private corporation).
It's true though, how are you going to download something else if your machine didn't come with a browser, but microsoft seriously needs to detach iE from windows cause dude that shit really is a bug magnet & having that thing embedded into the OS makes things even Worse, i mean why should people have iE in their machines if they don't want it.
I dislike Safari, don't want it on my Mac, but if I went and removed it, it would break the OS - how come Apple doesn't give me the option to remove a browser I don't want (w/o breaking the system)?
As far as the EU/MS, this is getting old, but the economy is in rough shape, so maybe the EU is looking to Microsoft to provide some money in another monopoly lawsuit, but last time I looked, FF had a marketshare of about 20%, so it's not like people don't know of alternatives anymore.
Only if they are a monopoly in the first place. If said company has only 5% market share, they can't be done for "monopoly" anything.
I don't mean to mischaracterise your positions, so please let me know if I have got any of this wrong.
Are you advocating a principle where it is ok to target those who are successful, due to their competence, achievement and intelligence, for the benefit of those who lack these qualities? To hate the good for being the good? Don't get me wrong, i'm not talking about companies who are already in bed with the government - let them all be damned as far as I care - but what about the companies who are successful because of their real achievements and talent? Why should the good be punished, just for being good? Microsoft, however annoyingly, was a better company than apple at a crucial point in time, because they worked with other companies instead of being an island upon themselves. That's how they first got their market share in the PC market. Why should they be punished for sound judgement?
Quote:
Presumably only if they are pricing stuff at or below cost (in an attempt to drive competitors out of business).
Presumably? All of these charges (pricing above, below or equally) exist so that the government has an excuse drag your business into court, where you can spend millions of dollars and waste years in legal battles. It doesn't matter if they have a case against you or not - a court case can be enough to put a company out of business. There can be all sorts of reasons for an anti-trust case: a prosecutor who wants to make his career out of your high profile case, a department that wants more power, a competitor who uses his 'connections' to get you charged, maybe you didn't pay off the right people, an anti-business politician gets elected, and so on. Are we to assume no bad motives on the part of all of the people in government? They are just people.
Quote:
And the charge will only turn into conviction if there was actual collusion.
You can be put out of business even without a conviction, due to the legal costs, loss of stockholder confidence, loss of long term sales, deals and partnerships that can occur during a long legal battle.
It seems like you are assuming infallibility on behalf of the court. Just throwing charges at innocent people is dangerous because once in a while, the court will make a bad decision. Are you suggesting that the court system is honest, competent or reliable enough it's safe to just charge people, because "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about"?
Quote:
Sorry, I'm failing to see the problem here.
Firstly, I could make a strong case that there is nothing immoral about pricing above, below or the same as your competitors, regardless of how much market share you have. However, I would like to see where you are coming from. What is the moral basis for you to be against companies pricing their own products as they please? Do you apply these same principles in your relationships, in your personal life, or are they purely abstract and theoretical?
I don't mean to mischaracterise your positions, so please let me know if I have got any of this wrong.
Yes, you've got it all wrong.
For the billionth time: having a monopoly is not a problem. Legitimately obtaining a monopoly by being better than your competitors is not a problem.
Abusing your monopoly power in order to maintain said monopoly is a problem.
Abusing your monopoly power in order to decrease/eliminate competition in another market is a problem.
In the case of Microsoft, they obtained a monopoly in the OS market by being better at business than other folk. The fact that people saw Windows as a better value proposition than others OSes is unfortunate, but that's a separate debate. Microsoft built the Windows monopoly legitimately.
The problem comes when you've obtained a monopoly and then abuse that monopoly power. Once microsoft had their OS monopoly they could bully computer manufacturers to prevent legitimate competition in the OS market - hence the death of the BeOS - Be couldn't get their OS installed by any OEMs due to Microsoft's threat to revoke their Windows license if they offered any competing OSes.
Moving on to web browsers - web browsers and operating systems are two separate markets. Microsoft used their monopoly power in operating systems to seriously hamper legitimate competition in the web browser market. Pre-installing IE on Windows gives IE a huge competitive advantage over competitors. This advantage is not due to IE being superior, it is due to Windows being the dominant operating system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by use-reason
Are you advocating a principle where it is ok to target those who are successful, due to their competence, achievement and intelligence, for the benefit of those who lack these qualities?
No, and I struggle to see how you possibly could have drawn this conclusion from any of the posts I've made thus far.
Quote:
Originally Posted by use-reason
Presumably? All of these charges (pricing above, below or equally) exist so that the government has an excuse drag your business into court, where you can spend millions of dollars and waste years in legal battles. It doesn't matter if they have a case against you or not - a court case can be enough to put a company out of business. There can be all sorts of reasons for an anti-trust case: a prosecutor who wants to make his career out of your high profile case, a department that wants more power, a competitor who uses his 'connections' to get you charged, maybe you didn't pay off the right people, an anti-business politician gets elected, and so on. Are we to assume no bad motives on the part of all of the people in government? They are just people.
Name me one time that any company has been taken to court by the government under false pretences for under-pricing their goods/services, and subsequently driven out of business. If you can do that maybe it'd be worth discussing this further.
Quote:
Originally Posted by use-reason
It seems like you are assuming infallibility on behalf of the court.
And you assume infallibillity of companies operating in a free market. Nothing is perfect, all organisations are liable to corruption. If you can get the corruption down to as low a level as possible, the system works.
Quote:
Originally Posted by use-reason
Just throwing charges at innocent people is dangerous because once in a while, the court will make a bad decision. Are you suggesting that the court system is honest, competent or reliable enough it's safe to just charge people, because "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about"?
No, I'm suggesting that in the specific case of US or EU government taking a company to court under anti-trust rules, there are enough safegaurds in place that the likelihood of utterly baseless accusations reaching court is very low.
Quote:
Originally Posted by use-reason
What is the moral basis for you to be against companies pricing their own products as they please?
Pricing above the competition in and of itself is not a problem. However, it may be an indicator that the company in question is ripping off customers, and it is able to do this because it has a monopoly and is abusing said monopoly power in order to keep prices artificially high.
Pricing in line with the competition in and of itself is not a problem. However, it may be an indicator that several companies are colluding with one another in order to avoid competition and keep prices artificially high.
Pricing below the competition in and of itself is not a problem. However, it may be an indicator that the company in question is selling goods/services at or below cost in order to drive competitors out of business. They will then be free to increase prices once their competition has been eliminated. For example, this accusation has been levied at a Major Coffee Shop Brand - they open for example 10 new coffee shops in a small area, where there are, lets say, 3 independent coffee shops. "Major Coffee Shop Brand" operates their new shops at a loss, and the independent shops are unable to compete with this - in order to do so they'd have to reduce their prices to below cost. However, they are caught between a rock and a hard place - if they don't reduce their prices, customers will go to "Major Coffee Shop Brand". If they do reduce their prices, they will retain their customers but go out of business anyway because they are now selling stuff below cost. So, "Major Coffee Shop Brand" drives the 3 independent coffee shops out of business. Once this has happened, they close 8 of their new coffee shops. Perhaps you disagree, but I think that's an unfair way to do business.
To see the true absurdity of all of this, we must come full circle, back to my original point: If voluntary, peaceful monopolies are somehow bad, then surely, compulsory, violent monopolies are worse! The voluntary monopolies have nothing more than marketing gimmicks - they can't force you to buy their products. If you have a problem with large organizations expanding their influence, then find some other way to fix the problem. Because, frankly, the governemnt is the largest organization on the planet, and expanding their influece at the expense of others is what they do best. To call for government intervention is an incredible contradiction because it requires you to ignore all of your arguments against monopolies in the first place! So in order to stop the problem of voluntary monopolies (which still have some competition), you want to create compulsory monopolies (with NO competition), and give them the power to start wars, jail people at will, tax half of your income, educate your children about how necessary they are, and regulate what you can do in your own home? Really? REALLY? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!! Come on! People, really... we are smarter than this.
Couldn't find any examples of companies being falsely taken to court for under-pricing their goods, huh? You gave the impression it was happening all the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by use-reason
then surely, compulsory, violent monopolies are worse!
Yes, they are. They are called dictatorships.
Quote:
Originally Posted by use-reason
To call for government intervention is incredible because it requires you to ignore all of your arguments against monopolies in the first place!
No it doesn't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by use-reason
with the power to start wars, jail people at will, tax half of your income, educate your children about how wonderful it is, and regulate what you can do in your own home?
On the first two points - war and jailing people at will - yes, there are sometimes hideous miscarriages of justice (e.g. Gauntanamo Bay - oh, but hey look, a government is now working hard to undo that mistake). If there's too much corruption it all goes to shit. But arguably if there's too much corruption you aren't dealing with proper democracy any more. Most western democracies seem to have got corruption down and have mechanisms in place to try and ensure that wars and sending people to jail only happen for good reasons.
On tax - yes, they take half your money and absolutely nothing happens in return Sure, some governments do a better job than others but it's not like the money just disappears into some great big void.
Yeah, the only thing I was taught in school was how wonderful government is In fact, I don't recall having any lessons about the government, full stop.
Oh yeah, and regulating what people do in their own home - how evil! People should be free to murder, rape, falsely imprison, pollute, impregnate their close relatives, etc. etc. - I mean, if they're in their own home, they should be allowed to do whatever they want, right?
Thank you, Mr H. I am done. You have provided me with closure. You are, of course, free to level any criticisms you wish - perhaps I am 'afraid to debate' because I 'have no proof', or something similar which would give you a feeling of victory. If this is what you are after, then I will let you feel it now - for free, without the effort that victories usually require. In exchange, I will escape endless discussions where no points get addressed, which would just consume both our time. A victory is of no value to me - but my time is. I have made all of the points I care to make on this issue. I am glad that I have been able to clarify my point of view. You may now have whatever it is you are after. Enjoy it, for whatever it is worth.
For those who are interested in the points I have raised, for the people who see some truth in what i have been saying, you might want to visit The Mises Institute and Free Domain Radio. Even Wikipedia has some value. Have fun.
Thank you, Mr H. I am done. You have provided me with closure. You are, of course, free to level any criticisms you wish - perhaps I am 'afraid to debate' because I 'have no proof', or something similar which would give you a feeling of victory. If this is what you are after, then I will let you feel it now - for free, without the effort that victories usually require. In exchange, I will escape endless discussions where no points get addressed, which would just consume both our time. A victory is of no value to me - but my time is. I have made all of the points I care to make on this issue. I am glad that I have been able to clarify my point of view. You may now have whatever it is you are after. Enjoy it, for whatever it is worth.
For those who are interested in the points I have raised, for the people who see some truth in what i have been saying, you might want to visit The Mises Institute and Free Domain Radio. Have fun.
Bye then. It is a shame that you should imply that I'm not addressing any of your points when in fact I've addressed all of them head on. I also don't really have time to debate this further so am happy to end it here. I claim no victory. We can call it a draw if you want. Or maybe you won. Or maybe it doesn't matter either way because this is a computer forum.
In terms of your leaving here altogether, yes, you can run away back to a place where everyone agrees with your point of view. Or you could head over to the PoliticalOutsider forum where you may find others with more time on their hands than me to debate this with you.
The EU is trying to find a reason to fine Microsoft again. This is just nonsense. Did the Opera people launch another complaint with the EU?
With Firefox, Safari, and Chrome out there this is a non-issue. Microsoft is not monopolizing the browser anymore.
That's strange... when I first fired up Window 7 Ultimate Beta , I had no choice but to use IE 8 in order to download Firefox.... What do you call it then, if not monopolization? Average Joe User would not even know how to do such a thing, so yes, it is monopolization either way...
(And yes, you MUST use IE to update/patch all windows versions that I am aware of).
Comments
It's true though, how are you going to download something else if your machine didn't come with a browser, but microsoft seriously needs to detach iE from windows cause dude that shit really is a bug magnet & having that thing embedded into the OS makes things even Worse, i mean why should people have iE in their machines if they don't want it.
I dislike Safari, don't want it on my Mac, but if I went and removed it, it would break the OS - how come Apple doesn't give me the option to remove a browser I don't want (w/o breaking the system)?
As far as the EU/MS, this is getting old, but the economy is in rough shape, so maybe the EU is looking to Microsoft to provide some money in another monopoly lawsuit, but last time I looked, FF had a marketshare of about 20%, so it's not like people don't know of alternatives anymore.
Only if they are a monopoly in the first place. If said company has only 5% market share, they can't be done for "monopoly" anything.
I don't mean to mischaracterise your positions, so please let me know if I have got any of this wrong.
Are you advocating a principle where it is ok to target those who are successful, due to their competence, achievement and intelligence, for the benefit of those who lack these qualities? To hate the good for being the good? Don't get me wrong, i'm not talking about companies who are already in bed with the government - let them all be damned as far as I care - but what about the companies who are successful because of their real achievements and talent? Why should the good be punished, just for being good? Microsoft, however annoyingly, was a better company than apple at a crucial point in time, because they worked with other companies instead of being an island upon themselves. That's how they first got their market share in the PC market. Why should they be punished for sound judgement?
Presumably only if they are pricing stuff at or below cost (in an attempt to drive competitors out of business).
Presumably? All of these charges (pricing above, below or equally) exist so that the government has an excuse drag your business into court, where you can spend millions of dollars and waste years in legal battles. It doesn't matter if they have a case against you or not - a court case can be enough to put a company out of business. There can be all sorts of reasons for an anti-trust case: a prosecutor who wants to make his career out of your high profile case, a department that wants more power, a competitor who uses his 'connections' to get you charged, maybe you didn't pay off the right people, an anti-business politician gets elected, and so on. Are we to assume no bad motives on the part of all of the people in government? They are just people.
And the charge will only turn into conviction if there was actual collusion.
You can be put out of business even without a conviction, due to the legal costs, loss of stockholder confidence, loss of long term sales, deals and partnerships that can occur during a long legal battle.
It seems like you are assuming infallibility on behalf of the court. Just throwing charges at innocent people is dangerous because once in a while, the court will make a bad decision. Are you suggesting that the court system is honest, competent or reliable enough it's safe to just charge people, because "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about"?
Sorry, I'm failing to see the problem here.
Firstly, I could make a strong case that there is nothing immoral about pricing above, below or the same as your competitors, regardless of how much market share you have. However, I would like to see where you are coming from. What is the moral basis for you to be against companies pricing their own products as they please? Do you apply these same principles in your relationships, in your personal life, or are they purely abstract and theoretical?
I don't mean to mischaracterise your positions, so please let me know if I have got any of this wrong.
Yes, you've got it all wrong.
For the billionth time: having a monopoly is not a problem. Legitimately obtaining a monopoly by being better than your competitors is not a problem.
Abusing your monopoly power in order to maintain said monopoly is a problem.
Abusing your monopoly power in order to decrease/eliminate competition in another market is a problem.
In the case of Microsoft, they obtained a monopoly in the OS market by being better at business than other folk. The fact that people saw Windows as a better value proposition than others OSes is unfortunate, but that's a separate debate. Microsoft built the Windows monopoly legitimately.
The problem comes when you've obtained a monopoly and then abuse that monopoly power. Once microsoft had their OS monopoly they could bully computer manufacturers to prevent legitimate competition in the OS market - hence the death of the BeOS - Be couldn't get their OS installed by any OEMs due to Microsoft's threat to revoke their Windows license if they offered any competing OSes.
Moving on to web browsers - web browsers and operating systems are two separate markets. Microsoft used their monopoly power in operating systems to seriously hamper legitimate competition in the web browser market. Pre-installing IE on Windows gives IE a huge competitive advantage over competitors. This advantage is not due to IE being superior, it is due to Windows being the dominant operating system.
Are you advocating a principle where it is ok to target those who are successful, due to their competence, achievement and intelligence, for the benefit of those who lack these qualities?
No, and I struggle to see how you possibly could have drawn this conclusion from any of the posts I've made thus far.
Presumably? All of these charges (pricing above, below or equally) exist so that the government has an excuse drag your business into court, where you can spend millions of dollars and waste years in legal battles. It doesn't matter if they have a case against you or not - a court case can be enough to put a company out of business. There can be all sorts of reasons for an anti-trust case: a prosecutor who wants to make his career out of your high profile case, a department that wants more power, a competitor who uses his 'connections' to get you charged, maybe you didn't pay off the right people, an anti-business politician gets elected, and so on. Are we to assume no bad motives on the part of all of the people in government? They are just people.
Name me one time that any company has been taken to court by the government under false pretences for under-pricing their goods/services, and subsequently driven out of business. If you can do that maybe it'd be worth discussing this further.
It seems like you are assuming infallibility on behalf of the court.
And you assume infallibillity of companies operating in a free market. Nothing is perfect, all organisations are liable to corruption. If you can get the corruption down to as low a level as possible, the system works.
Just throwing charges at innocent people is dangerous because once in a while, the court will make a bad decision. Are you suggesting that the court system is honest, competent or reliable enough it's safe to just charge people, because "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about"?
No, I'm suggesting that in the specific case of US or EU government taking a company to court under anti-trust rules, there are enough safegaurds in place that the likelihood of utterly baseless accusations reaching court is very low.
What is the moral basis for you to be against companies pricing their own products as they please?
Pricing above the competition in and of itself is not a problem. However, it may be an indicator that the company in question is ripping off customers, and it is able to do this because it has a monopoly and is abusing said monopoly power in order to keep prices artificially high.
Pricing in line with the competition in and of itself is not a problem. However, it may be an indicator that several companies are colluding with one another in order to avoid competition and keep prices artificially high.
Pricing below the competition in and of itself is not a problem. However, it may be an indicator that the company in question is selling goods/services at or below cost in order to drive competitors out of business. They will then be free to increase prices once their competition has been eliminated. For example, this accusation has been levied at a Major Coffee Shop Brand - they open for example 10 new coffee shops in a small area, where there are, lets say, 3 independent coffee shops. "Major Coffee Shop Brand" operates their new shops at a loss, and the independent shops are unable to compete with this - in order to do so they'd have to reduce their prices to below cost. However, they are caught between a rock and a hard place - if they don't reduce their prices, customers will go to "Major Coffee Shop Brand". If they do reduce their prices, they will retain their customers but go out of business anyway because they are now selling stuff below cost. So, "Major Coffee Shop Brand" drives the 3 independent coffee shops out of business. Once this has happened, they close 8 of their new coffee shops. Perhaps you disagree, but I think that's an unfair way to do business.
then surely, compulsory, violent monopolies are worse!
Yes, they are. They are called dictatorships.
To call for government intervention is incredible because it requires you to ignore all of your arguments against monopolies in the first place!
No it doesn't.
with the power to start wars, jail people at will, tax half of your income, educate your children about how wonderful it is, and regulate what you can do in your own home?
On the first two points - war and jailing people at will - yes, there are sometimes hideous miscarriages of justice (e.g. Gauntanamo Bay - oh, but hey look, a government is now working hard to undo that mistake). If there's too much corruption it all goes to shit. But arguably if there's too much corruption you aren't dealing with proper democracy any more. Most western democracies seem to have got corruption down and have mechanisms in place to try and ensure that wars and sending people to jail only happen for good reasons.
On tax - yes, they take half your money and absolutely nothing happens in return
Yeah, the only thing I was taught in school was how wonderful government is
Oh yeah, and regulating what people do in their own home - how evil! People should be free to murder, rape, falsely imprison, pollute, impregnate their close relatives, etc. etc. - I mean, if they're in their own home, they should be allowed to do whatever they want, right?
For those who are interested in the points I have raised, for the people who see some truth in what i have been saying, you might want to visit The Mises Institute and Free Domain Radio. Even Wikipedia has some value. Have fun.
Thank you, Mr H. I am done. You have provided me with closure. You are, of course, free to level any criticisms you wish - perhaps I am 'afraid to debate' because I 'have no proof', or something similar which would give you a feeling of victory. If this is what you are after, then I will let you feel it now - for free, without the effort that victories usually require. In exchange, I will escape endless discussions where no points get addressed, which would just consume both our time. A victory is of no value to me - but my time is. I have made all of the points I care to make on this issue. I am glad that I have been able to clarify my point of view. You may now have whatever it is you are after. Enjoy it, for whatever it is worth.
For those who are interested in the points I have raised, for the people who see some truth in what i have been saying, you might want to visit The Mises Institute and Free Domain Radio. Have fun.
Bye then. It is a shame that you should imply that I'm not addressing any of your points when in fact I've addressed all of them head on. I also don't really have time to debate this further so am happy to end it here. I claim no victory. We can call it a draw if you want. Or maybe you won. Or maybe it doesn't matter either way because this is a computer forum.
In terms of your leaving here altogether, yes, you can run away back to a place where everyone agrees with your point of view. Or you could head over to the PoliticalOutsider forum where you may find others with more time on their hands than me to debate this with you.
The EU is trying to find a reason to fine Microsoft again. This is just nonsense. Did the Opera people launch another complaint with the EU?
With Firefox, Safari, and Chrome out there this is a non-issue. Microsoft is not monopolizing the browser anymore.
That's strange... when I first fired up Window 7 Ultimate Beta , I had no choice but to use IE 8 in order to download Firefox.... What do you call it then, if not monopolization? Average Joe User would not even know how to do such a thing, so yes, it is monopolization either way...
(And yes, you MUST use IE to update/patch all windows versions that I am aware of).
(IE 8 stinks by the way)