Comment by interroboink
6 hours ago
> I don't understand how a "free" thing can be anti-consumer.
Not 100% apples-to-apples, but I imagine you've heard cases of "big players" in various industries lowering their prices to the point of selling at a loss, which drives out the small players (Amazon, Wal-Mart come to mind). In the end, only the big player is left, and they are now free to raise prices.
I think it's reasonable to see that initial low-prices (could even be free) period of behavior as anti-competitive, since it may ultimately stifle competition in the long term.
I do agree with that. Home Depot has a history of cutting out small lumber yards across the US for charging less for wood. Then when the local lumber yard is out of business, oh suddenly the wood shortage back east is a great reason to raise prices.
But what you're saying is that if a piece of software is popular, free and has no competition, it should be illegal!? And the browser isn't even a great example of that since there are tons of other options! Wireshark is specialty packet sniffing software that has literally no reasonable competition in it's space. It's also free. Should it be banned here?