Monopoly . . . Illegal?

[godspeedx]

My US History teacher told me that a monopoly in today's economy. . .
is illegal.

My dad thinks that a monopoly. . .
isn't illegal, as long as you follow guidelines given by the government to prevent you from abusing your control over the market.

Just wondering who's right.

 

[StageLeft]

It is illegal. What your dad described is not a monopoly.

 

Both. There are legal monopolies.

 

[Viper GTS]

The abuse is illegal, not the monopoly itself.

Viper GTS

 

[Amused]

The only legal and existing monopolies are those granted by, and heavily regulated by the government. i.e., power utilities and cable companies.

And hopefully, one day, there will be none of those left.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Legal Monopolies:
Technical. A monopoly supported by a patent.
Geographical. If you're the only gas station in a place in the middle of nowhere, you're okay.

 

[TommyVercetti]

Having a monopoly can't be illegal. What if you are the only one offering a certain product? Would the govt come and shut you down? The illegal thing would be if you are the only one offering a product, and play dirty games to not let anyone else from entering the market.

 

[godspeedx]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
It is illegal. What your dad described is not a monopoly.

I don't think what defines a company as having a monopoly or not involves if they abuse their control. If they have the control, they have a monopoly. . .

. . .I think.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
The abuse is illegal, not the monopoly itself.

Viper GTS

That's my understanding.
They can't shut you down just because no one bothers to compete with you. It's when you try to shut down and stifle competition that you break the law.

Think Microsoft v. Netscape a few years back. Microsoft's leveraged their veritable monopoly to drive Netscape into the ground by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows.

 

[StageLeft]

Think Microsoft v. Netscape a few years back. Microsoft's leveraged their veritable monopoly to drive Netscape into the ground by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows.

Course, I think nutscrape did that all by themselves

 

[godspeedx]

Originally posted by: Jzero

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
The abuse is illegal, not the monopoly itself.

Viper GTS

That's my understanding.
They can't shut you down just because no one bothers to compete with you. It's when you try to shut down and stifle competition that you break the law.

Think Microsoft v. Netscape a few years back. Microsoft's leveraged their veritable monopoly to drive Netscape into the ground by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows.

That's what I'm beginning to think. Maybe I'll try to contact one of the AP Economics teachers at my school.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Jzero

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
The abuse is illegal, not the monopoly itself.

Viper GTS

That's my understanding.
They can't shut you down just because no one bothers to compete with you. It's when you try to shut down and stifle competition that you break the law.

Think Microsoft v. Netscape a few years back. Microsoft's leveraged their veritable monopoly to drive Netscape into the ground by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows.

Uh huh. The fact that Netscrape sucked monkey balls had nothing to do with it, right?

:roll:

 

[jjones]

Your Dad's more right than your teacher is. Your teacher is actually completely wrong. There is nothing illegal about a monopoly if you are not using it to block out competition. If there are no competitors in your market, in effect, you have a monopoly. Nothing illegal with that at all.

 

[woowoo]

Can I be the little racecar?

 

[Allio]

There are advantages to monopolies, you know.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: Amused
Uh huh. The fact that Netscrape sucked monkey balls had nothing to do with it, right?

:roll:

Uhhh...
At that point in time, IE 3.x was bundled with the OS. The concurrent version of Netscape was far superior.

But regardless of that point, the entire basis of the lawsuits against Microsoft at that time was that they used their monopoly in the operating systems market to stifle competition in the browser market. It really doesn't matter whether you are an anti-netscape zealot -- this is what actually happened.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Jzero

Originally posted by: Amused
Uh huh. The fact that Netscrape sucked monkey balls had nothing to do with it, right?

:roll:

Uhhh...
At that point in time, IE 3.x was bundled with the OS. The concurrent version of Netscape was far superior.

But regardless of that point, the entire basis of the lawsuits against Microsoft at that time was that they used their monopoly in the operating systems market to stifle competition in the browser market. It really doesn't matter whether you are an anti-netscape zealot -- this is what actually happened.

zealot shmealot. MS is not a monopoly, nor is their browser. There is, and always has been alternatives. The problem here is not monopolies, it's a failure to effectively compete. MS has been, and still is being punished for making a product the majority favor over the competition. The very fact that that competition exists is proof MS is not a monopoly.

Sour grapes is now grounds for charges of monopolizing a market and "unfair" practices. The "fair" trade people will not be happy until every successfull company has it's legs cut off so the losers can have a "fair" chance.

 

[K1052]

it's a failure to effectively compete

Absolutely correct.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: Amused
zealot shmealot. MS is not a monopoly, nor is their browser. There is, and always has been alternatives. The problem here is not monopolies, it's a failure to effectively compete. MS has been, and still is being punished for making a product the majority favor over the competition. The very fact that that competition exists is proof MS is not a monopoly.

Sour grapes is now grounds for charges of monopolizing a market and "unfair" practices. The "fair" trade people will not be happy until every successfull company has it's legs cut off so the losers can have a "fair" chance.

I'm not going to debate HISTORIC FACT.

Microsoft's campaign to foreclose Netscape from the OEM channel involved a "massive and multifarious investment" in a "complementary set of tactics": (1) Microsoft "forced OEMs to take Internet Explorer with Windows and forbade them to remove or obscure it," which not only ensured the presence of IE on PC systems, but also "increased the costs attendant to pre-installing and promoting Navigator"; (2) Microsoft "imposed additional technical restrictions to increase the cost of promoting Navigator"; (3) Microsoft offered OEMs valuable consideration for commitments to promote IE to the exclusion of any other browser; and (4) Microsoft "threatened to penalize individual OEMs that insisted on pre-installing and promoting Navigator." FF 241 (JA 2307). The district court found that "Microsoft's campaign to capture the OEM channel succeeded."

That is STRAIGHT out of the appeal filed by Microsoft after finally being found GUILTY in 2000 of violating the Sherman Antitrust Law and a number of state laws.

I'm not arguing whether the law is "right" or not, but this is what the law is, and it is an excellent real-world example of just what is and is not legal about monopolies.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Jzero

Originally posted by: Amusedzealot shmealot. MS is not a monopoly, nor is their browser. There is, and always has been alternatives. The problem here is not monopolies, it's a failure to effectively compete. MS has been, and still is being punished for making a product the majority favor over the competition. The very fact that that competition exists is proof MS is not a monopoly.

Sour grapes is now grounds for charges of monopolizing a market and "unfair" practices. The "fair" trade people will not be happy until every successfull company has it's legs cut off so the losers can have a "fair" chance.

I'm not going to debate HISTORIC FACT.

Microsoft's campaign to foreclose Netscape from the OEM channel involved a "massive and multifarious investment" in a "complementary set of tactics": (1) Microsoft "forced OEMs to take Internet Explorer with Windows and forbade them to remove or obscure it," which not only ensured the presence of IE on PC systems, but also "increased the costs attendant to pre-installing and promoting Navigator"; (2) Microsoft "imposed additional technical restrictions to increase the cost of promoting Navigator"; (3) Microsoft offered OEMs valuable consideration for commitments to promote IE to the exclusion of any other browser; and (4) Microsoft "threatened to penalize individual OEMs that insisted on pre-installing and promoting Navigator." FF 241 (JA 2307). The district court found that "Microsoft's campaign to capture the OEM channel succeeded."

That is STRAIGHT out of the appeal filed by Microsoft after finally being found GUILTY in 2000 of violating the Sherman Antitrust Law and a number of state laws.

I'm not arguing whether the law is "right" or not, but this is what the law is, and it is an excellent real-world example of just what is and is not legal about monopolies.

A court once ruled on dred scott as well. Did that make it right?

A hint: Citing a court ruling does not trump an argument.

BTW, the case is silly on it's face. It's like Chrysler suing GM because GM wont feature mopar parts on GM cars. If Netscape was truely a better browser, the majority would have favored it. What Netscape whined about was not being allowed to be packaged with a competitor's product. MS offered incentives to keep IE. So what? Are all rebates now attempts at monopolies?

Boo fscking hoo.

 

[K1052]

I never had any problem installing Netscape on any Windows platform. I am not sure what "additional technical restrictions" refers to.

If you provide a better product or service that people want, they will use it.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Originally posted by: K1052
I never had any problem installing Netscape on any Windows platform. I am not sure what "additional technical restrictions" refers to.

Probably a screw loose in front of the keyboard.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: Amused
A court once ruled on dred scott as well. Did that make it right?

Originally posted by: Jzero
I'm not arguing whether the law is "right" or not, but this is what the law is, and it is an excellent real-world example of just what is and is not legal about monopolies.

I really hate quoting myself.

A hint: Citing a court ruling does not trump an argument.

The argument is "Is a monopoly illegal?"
The answer is "No, but using a monopoly condition to stifle competition IS."

The Microsoft case is an excellent real world example of this.

I don't care to get into a holy war over whether IE was better than Netscape, or whether the motivation behind the case was sour grapes, or whether the 100-year-old Sherman Act is outdated and could stand some updating.

It's not pertinent to the discussion. For some reason you want this to be a debate about free trade, but that's not what we're talking about.

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: ShotgunSteve

Originally posted by: K1052

I never had any problem installing Netscape on any Windows platform. I am not sure what "additional technical restrictions" refers to.

Probably a screw loose in front of the keyboard.

If they want Netscape that is a real possiblity. The only reason I ever install it is beacuse some people prefer it over IE.

 

[ggavinmoss]

Originally posted by: ShotgunSteve

Originally posted by: K1052

I never had any problem installing Netscape on any Windows platform. I am not sure what "additional technical restrictions" refers to.

Probably a screw loose in front of the keyboard.

lol.

Yeah, as others have said, nobody made Netscape suck more than Netscape itself. It looks like a million monkeys with a million typewriters didn't write Hamlet, they wrote Navigator 4.5.

-geoff