I don't 100% disagree with him, but this section struck me as especially egregious:
I'm a little surprised all the people who were so up in arms about the Microsoft "monopoly" ten years ago aren't out in the streets today lighting torches and sharpening their pitchforks to go after Google. Does the fact that Google's products are mostly free and ad-supported somehow exempt it from the same scrutiny?
This is an interesting argument, but there's one critical difference: Google does not partake in monopolistic activities.
One of the big problems with Microsoft was when they pre-installed Internet Explorer on Windows with no way to remove it, leveraging their OS monopoly to gain an unfair advantage in the browser market. They got sued, added a "remove software" option to let people remove pre-installed software (IE, Windows Media Player, etc.). Now, even though their OS market share has barely shifted (definitely under 5% shift), few people complain about their monopoly anymore.
I'm not saying they're okay now (or even that what Google's done is in the best interest of the internet), but the reason no one complains about Google's monopoly is because they created it legitimately, and they don't do evil things with it.
Found ya! This blog is much more frequently updated, haha. Anyway, here's my comment:
ReplyDeleteWhat is the evil in prepackaging your own operating system with your browser of choice? It’s your operating system- does someone really have the right to tell you that you must provide a remove option?
If you think this to be a slippery slope, then consider what might happen if Microsoft, say, decided to technologically prohibit any other browser but Internet Explorer from being installed. There would be massive uproar and easily enough pressure put on MS to remove such a prohibition. If they didn’t comply, then you can bet that you’ll see market share start to change. (Given of course, that Internet Explorer doesn’t serve the market’s needs.)
There is no inherent evil in prepackaging your own OS with your browser of choice (which they still do), nor is there any in not having a "remove" option. Yes, if the browser was good enough, the fact that this practice squashes the competition doesn't matter. If it wasn't good enough, the competition would eventually find its way through one way or another.
ReplyDeleteThe important part here is "eventually". One of my problems with some libertarian beliefs is that a lot of them rely on large timescales. I do believe that, on an extremely long timeline, libertarian economics may end up being the safest option. However, that long timeline often includes many sacrifices, including lost lives. People who are not libertarians believe that, while the market will eventually run its course, the time required is too much, and that they can achieve similar results in a shorter amount of time.
Monopolies illustrate this perfectly. Eventually, even monopolies will be toppled, usually because of a slow series of small mistakes by the company in question. But this can take decades, and leave Americans unknowingly stuck with an inferior product for that whole time. Most parties believe that fostering competition is more important than upholding economic integrity in instances like this.
Of course, only time will what's really best in the long run. What I'm getting at is the fact that, we understand monopolistic practices are not "evil"; we just believe that they are more harmful to the overall state of our nation than the economic integrity that's lost when we use the government to eliminate them.