EU investigates Windows 8 over browser choice concerns
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 18th Jul 2012 21:12 UTC
Windows The moment Microsoft announced it would lock other browsers out of being installed on Windows RT, we all knew regulatory bodies the world over were wringing their hands. Today, this has been confirmed: in the wake of an investigation into Microsoft not complying with the existing antitrust rulings regarding browser choice, the EU has also announced it's investigating Windows 8 x86 and Windows 8 RT (ARM).
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ronaldst
Member since:
2005-06-29

Alfman ,

Minimal government is nice, but without some kind of regulation you end up with corporations who are willing and able to abuse the lack of corporate oversight to the detriment of everyone else and even competition itself will suffer. The trick is to find the right balance, and not to overshoot.

Big government is nice, but you end up with corporations who are willing and able to abuse their immense corporate oversight to the detriment of everyone else and even competition itself will suffer. The trick is to leave government out of the selection of winners and losers, and not be tempted to protect people's profit for electoral purposes.


It may seem silly to you, but the very existence of many small/medium tech companies may ride on things like fair market access and APIs. Large corps are willing and able to lock up the entire industry. They'd strongarm OEMs and hijack standards to control what OEMS may sell. They'd add hardware restrictions to extend their control over end users as well. They'd render competing products ineffective and incompatible. History has shown time and time again that without regulation large corporations become abusive bullies who will use sheer size to dominate the markets rather than innovation or merit.

Only where there is government granted special favours (patents, etc...) you'll find monopolies.

Have a little faith in people, you'll be surprised.

Capitalism is great, I love it...but it needs to be played on a level playing field.

And where will you find people, that don't have an agenda, to level the playing field? ;)

Reply Parent Score: 1

Alfman Member since:
2011-01-28

ronaldst,

"Big government is nice..."

This is sarcasm; my statement "minimal government is nice" was not.


"Only where there is government granted special favours (patents, etc...) you'll find monopolies."

Actually, monopolies are a predicable and expected result of unbridled capitalism. The industrial revolution brought about many famous monopolists before big government.

Consider the game of monopoly. At the beginning everything is pretty fair, everyone starts with comparable assets. With the right luck and skill, one can take over the board. Now consider the exact same game, but a new player joins it much later. Neither luck nor skill will get them ahead any more because existing players own and control everything. The existing players may even be reckless and terrible, but it doesn't matter how poorly they play because new players don't have any chance at all without some kind of game reset or connections.


Real capitalistic markets are very similar. New markets start out with plenty of opportunity, over time they become dominated by a handful of players cornering almost the entire market. As I indicated earlier, capitalism is good, but it needs some kind of levelling mechanism to keep it from degenerating into monopolies and oligopolies.




"And where will you find people, that don't have an agenda, to level the playing field?"

Have a little faith in people, you'll be surprised. ;)

On a serious note though, I think you've nailed down one of the problems with government - it is rarely run in the interests of it's citizens.

Edited 2012-07-20 01:49 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 3

zima Member since:
2005-07-06

Big government is nice, but you end up with corporations who are willing and able to abuse their immense corporate oversight to the detriment of everyone else and even competition itself will suffer. The trick is to leave government out of the selection of winners and losers, and not be tempted to protect people's profit for electoral purposes.

Small government is nice, but you end up with corporations who are willing and able to abuse their immense corporate oversight / power and take over, to the detriment of everyone else and even competition itself will suffer. Corps selecting winners and losers, profits (or "jobs") easily manipulating the façade of electoral process.

Only where there is government granted special favours (patents, etc...) you'll find monopolies.

That is simply untrue, and I think you know it... hell, some monopolies are natural (infrastructure, and such), and need to be actively regulated or broken up by govs.

Have a little faith in people, you'll be surprised. [...] And where will you find people, that don't have an agenda, to level the playing field? ;)

Governments are ultimately largely reflections of their populations. "Let the people fix the competition "problem". The government needs to stay out of people's way" in your first post in sub-thread is naive... staying out of the way of people (or "people" - corps are them in some places) wishing to push their thing is also what broke it.

Reply Parent Score: 2