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Fear Big Brother, Not Microsoft
[Published in the Globe and Mail on Jan. 7, 1998.]
Dear Editor,
Re: "Microsoft" -- letter by R. G. Simms -- Dec. 30, 1997--The Globe and
Mail--ROB
In a letter to the editor, R.G. Simms says the U.S. Justice Department should persecute
Microsoft for packaging its Internet browser with its Windows 95 operating system
and offering it as an all-or-none condition of sale. Why? The "combination is
like having another person inside your computer, taking over every function."
Having Big Brother inside your business, taking over business decisions, doesn't
seem to worry Simms.
Simms's other fear is that Microsoft will dominate the browser market and thereby
control the Net. If Microsoft can dominate the browser market under free enterprise,
where transactions are voluntary, it means it will have earned such dominance, and
our gratitude for offering us more for less.
Any subsequent attempt by Microsoft to offer less for more will invite "greedy"
capitalists to invest in competitors. (Remember IBM?) The alternative is to allow
competitors like Netscape Communications and power lusters like Ralph Nader to enlist
the government to force Microsoft into mediocrity, thereby forcing us to accept less
for more.
Mr. Simms obviously suffers from the inverted notion that an omnipotent, coercive
government yields better products at lower prices whereas non-coercive competition
on a free market yields the opposite.
Sincerely,
Glenn Woiceshyn
© 1998 Glenn Woiceshyn.
All rights reserved. This article can be found on-line at at http://www.capitalism.org/glennw. |
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