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To: kech who wrote (6498)	12/15/1997 1:55:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

Well, I guess I like a government monopoly on power as a bunch of thugs running around with handguns isn't my idea of fun. Monopolies can be extremely profitable for quite long periods of time, but there is always leakage. If people thought Microsoft a grotesque monopoly, they could buy shares. Microsoft isn't actually a monopoly in the sense that the profits go to thousands of shareholders - there is no monopoly in owning Microsoft shares. Anyone can buy it. If farmers don't like rail charges, they can build their own railway, or use a truck, or donkey, or grow different crops, or move to a better location. I don't think charging what the market will bear is abuse. I think that is the correct way to price things. Globalstar and cdmaOne minutes especially. Any other way of charging is unfair, uneconomic and as is the parlance of the day, "sends the wrong signals". Of course, there are circumstances where people don't charge what the market will bear - if I stop to fix an old lady's flat tyre, I don't demand her life's savings. I do it gratis. Same as Bill Gates is going to give away to research centres and many other activities, billions of dollars. A commercial waste hauler who owns the local landfill will lose a customer to another city, or the customer will do their own waste disposal, recycling or whatever. There are always ways to leak around the monopoly or compete with it. The waste customer will buy unpackaged goods. Prices invariably end up at the long run marginal cost of another bit of production. So Globalstar should make obscenely large profits for a few years, but as the skies fill with satellites, the charges will be competed away to the long run marginal cost of another call. That is why they need to make heaps fast! Monopolies go away. Faster than the monopolist or anyone else expects. If MSFT kills Netscape, they will then have to deal with Anita-TM. Then IBM. Then something else. The source of Netscape's failure, if it dies, is that it was providing too narrow a service [in your example]. Bad luck for Netscape. Apple can whine they started the PC business. They had a monopoly. See what happened. Monopolists become big, dumb, fat and lazy. Microsoft and IBM got cloned by the million. Lucky for them that they couldn't stop the cloning - it is what got them where they are. Microsoft got a shot across it's bows with MSN. The public ditched it. I use Eudora. I use Netscape. Electricity is considered a monopoly too. But I can put a turbine or photovoltaics on my property. I can use gas. Insulation. Move to another place. Buy shares in the electricity company. All sorts. Don't need no Janet Reno. I think it all comes down to envy. Bill G has an amazing brain. He owns it. It is his! He can do amazing things with it and people throw money at him. Envy reigns supreme. He even lets people share in the profits by making his company public - which of course is good for him too. The USA should admire the best product which their system produces. The likes of Bill G and Irwin. Get off their backs! Protect them, don't attack them and steal from them. No apologies to Ramsey!! Mqurice