A little more on the Media Player Issue
So far this has been a pretty cool issue b/c everyone that seems to disagree with me at least presents a good argument. I just received this in the feedback section and I'd like to comment on it:
<<Hi Bill,
I want to try to answer your question about bundling media player hurting consumers. I don't know how it hurts consumers but I can see how it hurts the smaller companies that are trying to make media players of their own.
95% of the people who use computers at home are running a MS OS. Of those, probably 90% of them don't know that you can use 3rd party media players and don't have to use the MS media player that comes with Windows. They just use the MS media player because it's there. If the MS media player wasn't bundled with Windows then those 90% of people would be in the market for a media player, and that's a lot of people! MS could ship Wnidows with a link on the desktop where a user could download and install their media player, and other companies could work out deals with vendors to do the same for their media players, that way users could have a choice. Yes, most users would choose the MS media player because it would be free (I know I would!) and most of the other media players cost money. But in doing this MS would not be misusing it's huge market share to take advantage of the typical users, and the fact that they don't know that they have a choice for the media player that they want to use.
The media player is not an integral part of the OS, and that's why MS is getting in trouble for bundling it with their OS, and not allowing 3rd party companies to make deals with vendors of PC's to put their media player on Windows machines when they are built and sold. I also don't believe that you can remove the MS media player from Windows, so even if someone wants to use a 3rd party media player on their PC, MS media player is still there.
Just some thoughts,
skicow >>
Ok, I totally agree that it hurts smaller companies on the aggregate. But that's doesn't mean that it necessarily hurts them across the board. Moreoever, I'd posit that the 'consumers' is really what matters b/c the benefits of the free market are precisely derived by companies hurting each other. If CompanyA and CompanyB get in a price war, they both suffer to some degree, hopefully one will benefit at some point but that's not necessarily so. In the interim, consumers will benefit by the price reductions.
The idea of a link is valid, but there are still a LOT of people that are computer phobic and don't want to be burdened with downloading stuff. I know that most everyone has broadband so this distinction is less progressively less important, but not everyone does. And not everyone wants to download stuff. I personally would love it if I never had to install anything, but that's not going to happen.
But most importantly, MS's stuff tends to be easy to use, pleasant to use and Consistent. They use the tallent that they've built to win in other markets. Asking them not to, or punishing them for doing so in an arbitrary fashion doesn't benefit anyone except the politicians and MS's competitors. There are tons of people smarter than me out there, and I would certianly derive some benefit if I could stop them from using their smarts if and when we got in a competition. It would be even cooler if I could 'level the playing field' whenever anyone had an advantage over me. But it would only benefit me. Lot's of other people would get screwed in the process. Some people might be rich, smart and good looking. That's essentially the place MS is in this metaphor. Making them uglier, dummer or poorer certainly benefits me, but if you were the girl getting asked out (the consumer), which world would you rather be in?
Finally, Microsoft having the OS doesn't guarantee them success. Where do you go to search for stuff, Google or MSN? I got to Google and to be honest, I use Google exclusively when I want data on MSDN b/c Microsoft's search stuff leaves something to be desired. Having control of the OS did nothign in this battle. And it's hard to see how it could. Similarly, Money hasn't killed Quicken. SQL Server hasn't killed Oracle. IIS Hasn't killed Apache. But you can be sure MS as well as each competitor named above has run a lot of small guys right out of the market. And I just can't see how any of them pulling their punches would help me, as a developer or a consumer.
What do you think?