Re: Why Microsoft is a Threat to Freedom

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Mon, 3 Nov 1997 21:23:36 -0800 (PST)


> This is the current lead article from the 'Boycott Microsoft Website'.
> There's much more. Make sure to check their monopoly clock, it's now
> 11:54. At midnight consumer choice will be gone.
> http://www0.vcnet.com/bms//
> Why Microsoft is a Threat to Freedom
> [the usual tripe...]

While I have nothing against a voluntary consumer boycott, why is
it that the MS-bashers always seem to want someone to use guns, like
the FTC, rather than actually competing with them? Why are those
who don't like Microsoft's tacics not using those same tacticts,
since they obviously work? (And don't give me any bullshit about
how morally upstanding a company Netscape is). Why do they always
complain simultaneouly that (a) Users must be told to band together
to stop using MS products, and (b) MS products suck? Obviously,
one of those two must be wrong, because if the products sucked, you
wouldn't have to tell anyone not to use them.

Here's a free clue: the MS monopoly /will/ fall, as every so-called
monopoly in history always has, despite the fact that the government
will do everything in its power to keep it in power. And it won't
be because some clueless group of whiners staged a boycott; it will
be because someone with courage, vision, talent, and creativity will
have made a better product. If you want to hasten that day, fine:
don't avoid MS products; just keep buying good ones. Innovation is
what kills monopolies, and MS has never innovated in its life.

Someone should go the idea futures exchange and make the following
proposition, so that I can buy shares:

"By January 1, 2010, Microsoft Corporation (or the aggregate of all
sub-entities it may have been ordered to split into) will own less
than 50% market share in its product with highest sales."

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC