Tom WSMF wrote:
> Of course they should be allowed to, or rather there should be nothing in
> there way EXCEPT...for the consumer.
>
"Shouldn't be allowed to..." by the consumer, that is. ;-) It amazes me
what lemmings people are sometimes. Not to crib Apple imagery, but really...
> Examples include chirstians, disney, aybabtu, mp3's, linux, baseball, etc
> etc etc.
All very good points, but I'm not quite ready to prosecute my "tribes of
intent" vs. "tribes of identity" argument vis-a-vis Micrsoft, free markets,
and anti-trust. I'm still recovering from the tax thread-from-hell. ;-) :-)
The summary, though, is a sad recognition that there may not be any way to
have legal recognition of nonindividual entities without regulation.
> If MS is so god damn evil and people still support them by giving them
> money, who are you aiming to protect?
People don't need protection, and I'm the last person who would make that
argument. (C'mon, Tom, you know me better than that.) But there's a more
complicated set of issues; there are different kinds of memes, and different
kinds of social entities ranging from individuals to all kinds of megatribes,
and the problem is where the balance of choice should reside and how one
protects *the balance of choice.*
> Its up to the CONSUMER to decide where the power is, and they vote each
> and every fucking time they pay for and MS product.
I couldn't agree more. Further, I actually believe that this move by MS is a
good thing; it will force the issue. Will consumers be satisfied in the long
run by being told they'll damn well eat what they are served? Remains to be
seen.
> It comes down to this one simple fact You Cant Legislate Away Percived
> Stupidity.
>
> You start legislating what folks can and cannot support and you are way
> downt he road to serfdom.
Whoah, there, pard --- when did I ever advocate parental gov't and solutions
through legislation?
Yer just gonna have to wait for the argument, but suffice to say I've been
struggling with this whole chink (antitrust) in the armor of my free marketing
philosophy for a long time. It's a thorny problem.
jb
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 29 2001 - 20:25:40 PDT