Post by @Blue_Morpho

In reply to 6 earlier posts

@RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip on piefed.zip Open parent

Steam lawsuits in a nutshell

@BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone on lemmy.blahaj.zone Open parent

When I think of monopolies, I think more of telecomms, of Wal-Mart and their selling at a lose to kill off competition, Microsoft purposely hindering the ability for competing software, and other examples. Unless I’m missing something, Steam didn’t do that, they were just first in the game and built a better product than the others did. Offering a better service that attracted customers. Now do I think it’s too large and would welcome competition, absolutely. But monopolies typically aren’t though just having larger market share with a better product. If Steam did something like oh, pay developers/publishers to be exclusive to their platform, then yeah you’d have a good argument there.

Open parent Original URL

@Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world on lemmy.world Open parent

Microsoft purposely hindering the ability for competing software, Nope. MS was declared a monopoly because of marketshare and therefore had to add support for competing software. Offering a better service that attracted customers. Monopoly is from marketshare. How it is obtained doesn’t matter. Once you are the biggest company you need to have restrictions placed on you so that smaller companies have a chance to compete.

Open parent Original URL

@BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone on lemmy.blahaj.zone Open parent

Nope on Microsoft. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…/_Microsoft_Corp. It was restricting the web browser market. Point two, it’s if they also hamper competition or capabilities to compete. Steam, as shown in this thread and how it operates, hasn’t done that. Now you can give a good thumb of the nose at Epic for their paid exclusives, but that didn’t get them anywhere toward dominating a market. Also, competition exists in various forms as well. It’s not monopolized. I hate monopolies and no friend of big companies, but come at them with the right cudgel, not made up dross.

Open parent Original URL

@Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world on lemmy.world Open parent

It was restricting the web browser market. If bundling a web browser is an uncompetitive act that requires government intervention then Apple, Google (Android), and commercial Linux distros would also be sued by the government. Microsoft was sued, not for the action in isolation but because of their monopoly position. They didn’t get their monopoly from bunding a web browser. They already had a monopoly. People overwhelmingly chose Windows because it was the best. At the time Linux didn’t have consumer friendly distros and MacOS was still cooperatively multitasked like Windows 1.0 from 1982. Steam’s monopoly destroyed ownership of games. You used to buy a game at Egghead, and when you were done playing, you could sell it for whatever the free market said it was worth. Steam’s monopoly also means you can’t open a small game store- they wiped out those businesses just like Walmart. Vendors deal with Walmart because a tiny profit of being in every Walmart is better than a large profit from a few stores exactly like vendors sell on Steam.

Open parent Original URL

@BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone on lemmy.blahaj.zone Open parent

Purposely making code and behind the door deals to exclude any browser development or success for years does, yes. Steam didn’t destroy ownership of games, scuzzy business practices in the entire industry did. It also affects non-gaming software, movies, most media actually. It wasn’t Valve going “Let’s remove ownership!” In fact it has crept into the physical realm with right to repair and subscription services in cars. So is Netflix a monopoly then because it wiped out video rental stores? It wasn’t Valve alone again, it was a collusion in the video game industry to go all digital to maximize profit and not have to make concessions to retailers. That’s why they also tried their own platforms. Edit: You are again mistaking a successful business in a capitalist society with monopoly. Monopoly is again, the manipulation of market forces and regulatory control. Not I just do business better.

Open parent Original URL

Blue_Morpho in !lemmyshitpost

@Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 13d

Purposely making code and behind the door deals to exclude any browser development or success for years does, yes. There was no code to exclude other browsers. Netscape at the time was the monopoly web browser. Netscape failed because Netscape 4 was a disaster. JWZ wrote about it extensively. I personally experienced Netscape’s failure. Netscape 4 had a bug in their dialer that couldn’t handle area codes. When I called to tell them, despite having already paid tens of thousands to Netscape in licensing fees, they wanted $80k to look at the problem. I called my friends who ran other ISP’s to ask them what they were doing because Netscape 4 was broken. They said they weren’t even trying- they were shipping only IE 4 on their CD’s. I wanted my customers to have the choice so I spent the development time to work around Netscape’s bugs and had my tech support field the calls. Netscape ran themselves off a cliff. The Netscape coders themselves said so. It is utterly ridiculous to claim that MS sabotaged them somehow with “code and deals”. So is Netflix a monopoly then because it wiped out video rental stores? As I already said, monopoly is a label given to businesses that have dominant marketshare. It doesn’t matter how it is obtained. Once you own the market, you have restrictions placed on you that smaller companies don’t have to keep the free market working. Monopoly is again, the manipulation of market forces and regulatory control. That’s not the definition used by the government. You are declared a monopoly and after that restrictions are placed on your actions.

View on lemmy.world

Loading comments...

About Community

Lemmy Shitpost

!lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world

Welcome to Lemmy Shitpost. Here you can shitpost to your hearts content.

Anything and everything goes. Memes, Jokes, Vents and Banter. Though we still have to comply with lemmy.world instance rules. So behave!

Rules: 1. Be Respectful

___ Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion. Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here. …

2. No Illegal Content

___ Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required. That means: -No promoting violence/threats against any individuals -No CSA content or Revenge Porn -No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing) …

3. No Spam

___ Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules. -If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community. -Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community. -No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers -No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community. …

4. No Porn/Explicit

Content ___ -Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content. -Do not post Gore or Shock Content. …

5. No Enciting Harassment,

Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts ___ -Do not Brigade other Communities -No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy. -No Witch Hunts against users/communities. -No content that harasses members within or outside of the community. …

6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.

___ -Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags. -Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.

…

If you see content that is a breach of the rules, please flag and report the comment and a moderator will take action where they can.

Also check out:

Partnered Communities:

1.Memes

2.Lemmy Review

3.Mildly Infuriating

4.Lemmy Be Wholesome

5.No Stupid Questions

6.You Should Know