Originally posted by: Matthias99
Once they've paid to develop them, though, it costs MS nothing to bundle them with the OS. For the VAST majority of Windows users, having an email client and media player is worth whatever the extra cost (amortized over millions of copies of the OS) is, and they cannot reasonably ship the OS without a web browser. If the OS cost $500 and included a full copy of MS Office, I would have a problem, but it doesn't.
An interesting analogy, but one that is easily turned around. Before "the internet" became such a big thing, people used their computers for things like... word processing. So, why isn't a full-featured word-processor bundled with the OS after all?
Could it be, that the inclusion of those non-essential applications with the OS, is in fact purely anti-competitive, and in the hypothetical case of MS having an existing OS monopoly, and fighting to destroy the market-share of competing commercial word-processors, that they would bundle their own full-featured free one? Of course they would. The reason they don't, is: 1) they have a near-monopoly on word-processor software on Windows, and 2) they already have a commercial market for theirs, that they don't want to undermine.
(And no, WordPad doesn't count as a "free" full-featured word-processor.) It does give pause to the question of why MS doesn't bundle a limited web browser, and then sell their full-featured one commercially. Until you consider MS's plot to utterly crush all of their commercial competors in that product sector. Remember, web browsers used to cost money just like word processors.
The true hidden costs, beyond just the amortized development costs to build the software, are the tangental costs of the results from the utter destruction of competition in that market segment. Lack of innovation and lack of consumer choice. Again, purely anti-competitive motivations behind the bundling.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
Digital handcuffs pre-installed is better than having no handcuffs attached at all? Are you serious???
MS not supporting DRM will not make it go away. Microsoft is not the one pushing DRM, other than trying to push their own DRM solutions over other ones.
Yes, I would rather be able to choose to use DRM-protected content if I want to then to not have that choice.
So you are strongly against consumer choice in the marketplace? Because that is what DRM enables - restricting a customers right to choose, and right to freely use, what they pay for. Again, another anti-competitive ploy.
Hey, I can't disagree... some people like whips and chains and cuffs and that sort of thing. But they are definately not for me. I prefer to go free, with freely-usable hardware and software.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
This aspect of DRM really needed to be highlighted. It's about *control*, control over the user, control over the market, NOT about piracy.
And why, exactly, do they want to control what you do with the content? So you don't copy/steal it, or restribute it against the content owner's wishes.
LOL. If you really believe that, then I've got a bridge to sell you. I cannot believe that you would be that naive.
Do I need to list some examples? How about PDF files that restrict you from printing out a hard copy of the document?
How about CDs that limit how many times that you can listen to them, or how many times you can tranfer a copy to your portable music player?
How about future recorded video discs, that prevent you from bringing over to a friend's house to watch?
Note that NONE of those artificial restrictions have anything to do with preventing piracy. But they do provide for "added market opportunities"... because DRM allows control over the market and control over the user.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
THAT is what the future of DRM holds for consumers. It heralds the death of the free market for content-based goods.
I can see I'm probably not getting anywhere on this.
Well, some people simply have a hard time accepting the truth, no matter how unadorned it may be. The truth is often ugly. But when you artificially restrict competition and free-market forces, that's what you get. A stagnant, fascist, market. Like in Soviet Russia...
Originally posted by: Matthias99
It will eventually evolve into something like XBoxLive - one strike and you're banned, permanently.
Nobody accidentally installs a mod chip in their XBox...
Why don't you re-phrase that instead... "nobody installs a mod chip just to play homebrew/3rd-party software" (implying piracy)... or do they?
Consumers have come to have certain expectations about the "open" PC platform. Once MS starts restricting things more, any attempt to negate or escape those restrictions - just to get back the full functionality that was paid for - will be assumed/presumed to be "piracy". (As you yourself suggested.) Witness the number of people that modded their XBoxes just to install Linux and turn it into a media-player/TIVO-like device - NOT "piracy". All these people want to do is avoid being put into digital handcuffs.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
This will herald the death of "unlicensed/unapproved" third-party hardware and software for the platform, as it becomes a fully-closed, fully-MS-proprietary platform. (Ironic to think that people once accused the Mac platform of being non-open and "proprietary", considering what MS now has in the pipeline for the MS-PC platform.)
Again, forecasting inevitable doom.
No, just telling it like it is.
I predicted that "Genuine Validation" would become non-optional, and got laughed at by bsobel and slash - guess what? Six months later - it became required! Am I a genius, or what? Not really... some people just refuse to read the writing on the wall.
