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0 pointsenitihas6y ago0 comments

The amount of proprietary stuff that has immense impact on global business (with no oversight) is huge: 1. Microsoft Windows 2. Microsoft Office

I think any big tech company falls into this. And unlike google search, there is no alternative for Microsoft windows. You can change your search engine and keep using a new one without any trouble or training. Off course, you can say that the others are not good enough, but companies don't get dismantled because competitors are not good enough. Switching from MS windows is alas, not possible. The main thing is the large number of applications available for it and not for other platforms, and also needs significantly more training than switching away from Google search.

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s3r3nity6y ago· 1 in thread

>The amount of proprietary stuff that has immense impact on global business (with no oversight) is huge...

The issue isn't market share alone - it's whether or not the company leverages that in an anti-competitive way. Ex: installing Microsoft Office on a Mac doesn't uninstall Numbers or Keynote off your machine. Or installing the Outlook app on Android doesn't ask you to switch your default email client every time you open the app. However, try using Google Search in Edge or Safari and you'll see a bunch of ads and tool tips pushing the user to install Chrome. Or see the reported cases of Edge users not being able to play on Google Stadia unless they switch to Chrome.

> And unlike google search, there is no alternative for Microsoft windows.

Google Docs / Apple iWork Suite (Numbers, Pages, Keynote, etc.) would disagree.

enitihasOP6y ago

> Google Docs / Apple iWork Suite (Numbers, Pages, Keynote, etc.) would disagree.

None of these are replacements for Windows, the Operation system, which is what I claimed.

> it's whether or not the company leverages that in an anti-competitive way

Yeah, so a company silently changing your search engine in a competitor's browser on update of unrelated software is engaging in the worst kind of uncompetitive behaviour, which is what Microsoft is doing.

Using google search doesn't install Chrome magically on your machine. It is an ad, and like any other company, Google is allowed to run ads.

Also, search for Google chrome on bing, and you would see a giant popup telling you to download Edge.

Honestly, I can't recall one bad thing that Google does, that Microsoft doesn't do worse. Fortunately, Microsoft could never have a foothold in the online advertising market, so they don't have any use of as much user data so far, although they do collect all sorts of telemetry from almost all their products, and in windows you can't even disable all of that.

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