At no point in the MS virtual monopoly, has MS controlled anyone’s access to opinion, thought, or knowledge. Google does, every day, albeit with their oft stated noble intention of not being evil.
The fact is, at the point that MS gained the ascendancy, and developed their monopoly, the market was ready for a monopoly, if it wasn’t MS, it would have been IBM, Apple, Sun, Larry and Sergei if they were old enough, or anyone else who could have got it together well enough. The market was ready to explode, and they were in the right place, at the right time, and any of the others would have done the same thing.
It is the legal reponsibility of the directors of any corporation to place profit above any personal ethical qualms that they may personally hold. Go read corporations law. Google is a corporation now…
For all those who say windows is a pile of shit, but continue to use it… why? If you feel so strongly about it, prove that you have a spine, and are capable of independent thought, go use something else.
Yes, google make the best search product, at one time, MS made the best OS product, many people here may not actually remember what how shitty the other options were back then. At the time, MS was seen as our saviour from the evil of the big blue IBM.
Yes, google is my most used search engine by a factor of at least 20:1, but it does still worry me, much more than any monopoly that MS ever had.
MS had a monopoly on operating systems and office software, google has a monopoly on the flow and visibility on the largest collection of human knowledge ever assembled. They can influence sales in markets that have nothing to do with IT, their influence is far greater than MS ever achieved. If you do business online, and get blocked by google, you will go broke, no ifs no buts.
They make a great product, I don’t consider it shitty, so will continue to use it, carefully and mindfully, for the moment…
hell, it even finds my old answers on SO when I have forgotten the answers myself - how cool is that?
But how easy will it be to move away when all your mail is in gmail, all your files are stored on your gdrive, all your work is in your google apps, 80% of your ad budget goes through google, and all your clients find you through google? One click away, I don’t think so.
The MS monopoly will just be a blip in history, google will be of far greater significance, good or bad, who knows…
What are we going to do about it? NFI.
But at least be aware that it is happening and don’t be so naively black and white.
baaaaa. MS are evil. baaaaa. Google are not.
Say hello world to your robotic overlords.
Don’t Worry - they make the best products, they’re free (kinda), and… They’re not evil TM