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Comment by JohnFen | Hacker News Reader

> Microsoft would have to be doing anticompetitive behavior to be monopolizing the desktop market

No. I think the distinction here is important and worth being mindful of.

Whether or not a company is abusing their monopoly position has no bearing on whether or not they are a monopoly. You can't abuse a monopoly position if you aren't a monopoly to begin with, after all.

The distinction is important because in the US it's perfectly legal to be a monopoly. What's illegal is the abuse of your monopoly position.

I think by any fair standard, Microsoft can be considered to have a monopoly in the desktop market, whether or not they're leveraging that monopoly in illegal ways.

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Microsoft has a long history of illegal anti-competitive behavior going back decades. I particularly remember an attempt to break Lotus Notes in a service pack that backfired and broke Windows servers.

This was as they were building up Exchange.

You're right, but the victory is pyrrhic. Sure, by the dictionary definition of the word "monopoly", you've got a point, but in the actionable legal sense, you do not, and it's in the legal sense that we're discussing (not all that accurately, admittedly).

Everyone here who isn't talking about semantics is using the word monopoly to mean "abusive monopoly".

I think by any fair standard, Microsoft can be considered to have a monopoly in the desktop market

How? Lots of people I know use Macs, and developers/techie types frequently use Linux.

Windows is the most popular for some types of business, arguably most types, but it doesn't have a monopoly within the desktop space.

Again, simply being dominant in a market _is not_ being a monopoly.

Monopolies are definitively the exclusive control or possession of the supply of the market. Just as a Monopsony is exclusive control or possession of the demand in a market. Microsoft has dominant market position but they do not control the entire supply of OS, hence they are the popular choice but not the exclusive choice.

Whether or not a monopoly is legal or illegal is non sequitur, since it doesn't apply in context here. There are plenty of legal, regional monopolies that benefit consumers from such regulation in utilities, but those are not tech markets.

I'm not sure where you're getting your definitions, but they're not the ones used by the justice department.

"An unlawful monopoly exists when one firm controls the market for a product or service, and it has obtained that market power, not because its product or service is superior to others, but by suppressing competition with anticompetitive conduct." [1]

That's somewhat different from your definition in that it is deliberately open to interpretation (the Sherman Act, for instance, doesn't actually define monopoly) and revolves around anti-competitive conduct rather than exclusive control of supply (which isn't required - ex. Microsoft never had 100% of the OS market, nor did Standard Oil have 100% of the oil market).

[1] https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-laws-and-you

That is because the DOJ website is only interested in defining lawful vs unlawful monopoly, not defining what a monopoly is.

The definition of the word "Monopoly" is already widely denoted as supply side control:

- Wikipedia: The exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly)

- Investopedia: A monopoly exists when a single entity is the sole provider of a particular asset or service. (https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/032415/whats-differ...)

- Oxford Dictionary: The exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service. (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/monopoly)

The definition of the word "Monopoly" is already widely denoted as supply side control:

That's obviously too narrow. Someone controlling the demand side could be just as obnoxious. A company in a company town is in control of the demand side of the labor market, for example.

So you think Oxford Dictionary, Wikipedia, and Investopedia are all too narrow with words?

Control of the demand side of a market is called a Monopsony, not Monopoly. It's mentioned in the thread above, more info here: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopsony.asp

You are correct, sir! I remember now HN has had this discussion before. However, I think most people would refer to both a Monopsony and Monopoly as the latter.

No, that’s not true. People rarely even consider that there is a special term for being the only buyer or controlling all of the buyers.

I can’t think of any scenarios where people referred to the military as having a monopoly on the missile market. It doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t even make missiles.

I can’t think of any scenarios where people referred to the military as having a monopoly on the missile market.

But Farmers being ravaged by middlemen would use that term about the middlemen buying their crops.

This always comes up - the vocabulary we use in this discussion has been heavily tainted over the years by those who would most benefit by broadening the definition of monopoly. Keep fighting the fight. Precision in language is vital on this front.

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