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Comment by the_snooze

2 days ago

I never said it was Microsoft's problem. I'm just showing you that "oh, switch to something else" is a naive view if you actually have real work to do.

6 comments

the_snooze

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CharlieDigital  2 days ago

That's fine, but that doesn't meet the definition for a monopoly; that's just inertia.

  • BartjeD  2 days ago

    A monopoly is measured in a given market by marketshare.

    Ofcourse the existence of 10 alternatives is meaningless if they count for 0.01% of given market section. Lol

    • CharlieDigital  2 days ago

      Find any definition of "monopoly" and it should be pretty clear that it's not merely marketshare but the active manipulation of markets and market conditions to produce that marketshare.

          > A monopoly is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce a particular thing, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the possibility of a high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost that leads to a high monopoly profit.

      ^ Wikipedia def is a prime example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly)

  • the_snooze  2 days ago

    I'd argue it's more than "just inertia." It's that end-users don't have any real meaningful choice. If you deviate from the standard in your field (MS Office in my case), you take on immense costs for minimal gain.

    Microsoft knows this, and they make business decisions to maintain and expand this position. They may not be a monopoly in the strict sense (and I never said they were), but they're not a passive player either who accidentally fell into this situation. We don't need to give trillion-dollar companies the benefit of the doubt here.

    • CharlieDigital  2 days ago 

          > Microsoft knows this, and they make business decisions to maintain and expand this position

      For the edification of the readership, please share how Microsoft's business decisions are being made to maintain a monopoly in your space. Are they buying out competitors? Are they using contract terms that forbid the use of other vendors? Are they under-pricing their product relative to the market?

      If the cost of migrating results in "minimal gain", doesn't that mean that they have a top product and the market has other competitive products by definition?

      If you can provide some evidence of how they actively use business practices to maintain a monopoly, it would go a long way to advancing this discussion instead of showing long-held biases and I'm sure some lawyers out there would be ready to make a name for themselves.

AuthAuth  2 days ago

Someones template breaking is not a real problem. The office alternatives work perfectly fine for "real work". If your template doesnt work fix it. You fixed it all those times it broke on office.