All jokes aside, for those who remember, it's pretty amazing what Microsoft got punished for (bundling a browser with the OS, with no other restrictions) compared to what Apple and Google get away with.
EDIT: One more thing that everyone seems to confuse is that antitrust cases should protect CONSUMER rights not PRODUCER rights. A case can be made that Google and Apple are hurting other companies by offering free services with their products but they ARE NOT HURTING CONSUMERS.
We tend to forget that even natural monopolies can be broken by new technology and innovation. And even big companies can be beaten by smaller ones. Microsoft tried to beat Google at search while Google was smaller and much less powerful than it is today. They couldn't, because big companies have a priority to protect their cash cows and don't necessarily have the talent or the focus required to tackle new markets (i.e. the innovator's dilemma). Google tried to beat Facebook at social. They also failed by being too conservative, while at the same time fucking their users. Can you spot a pattern?
And Producer rights are affecting Consumer rights.
Without a free market, we're all worse off — the only justified monopoly is a governmental one.
All of them were started before Google even started competing with them.
Show me a company started after Google had already established a presence in a market that’s either competing with Google (and having a positive prediction) or that has thrown Google out of the market at all.
Yes, it does, that’s the entire point.
Will we still see as much innovation in 10, 20 years? For that, this part is very important.
> The simple fact of bundling is not a problem when there are choices.
Google forbids OEMs from selling custom Android forks. That’s not choice.
As said, both the EU and US consider this anticompetitive, and are investigating it. If you believe you – which apparantly are unable to use correct orthography – are more knowledged than the top lawyers of the two largest economies, then, sure, go on.
Even Google has admitted they are doing anticompetitive bundling, their defense is that it’s required to fund Android at all. That alone should say everything.
Or even just delivers parts for such a device, as was threatened with SAMSUNG and Amazon.
But hammering them for bundling a browser was just plain stupid. If they didn't bundle a browser, how would people download a competing browser? You'd have had to get hold of a browser on CD somewhere and install it manually just to use the internet. How would that have been an improvement for consumers? It was a misconceived, user-hostile decision.
ftp ftp.netscape.comI'm not aware of any popular OS that doesn't have ftp support on the main UI (except Android, which doesn't have a file management app anyways; not sure about iOS). Nautilus has ftp support. So does thunar, dolphin, konq, etc. You can type ftp addresses into the address bar in osx, iirc.
- Didn't want to open a browser one day but wanted to download the latest version of FF. Thought I'd try FTP. Ultimately gave up on trying to find the right path and Googled it.
Another time (later), I vaguely recall being at a kiosk with IE disabled in various boring ways, and I tried to see if I could download FF (just to see if it was possible) after successfully managing to open the FTP site. I might be misremembering, but I think the only reason I was able to locate the dir properly was because I'd previously made a careful mental note where it was. (It downloaded, but executables were disabled. Those sysadmins did a good job.)
"Sue, how do I get that browser thingie?"
"Erm, Jane wrote it down for me... here's the Post-It"
"Thanks."
We survived OK.
> I can't do that, the hospital is within 50 miles of a school and you're banned from being within 50 miles of a school, because you commented "she's very pretty" to a picture of your 5-year-old niece and we've decided you're a paedophile.
Also, I must frankly admit my great curiosity at the fact that your last comment was posted 3.61 years ago. Alt account? Deleted comments?