[X Newbies] OS stability

[Steven Rogers]

On Mar 30, 2004, at 11:12 AM, Eugene Lee wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 09:33:41AM -0600, Steven Rogers wrote:
> :
> : How can you say that MS has a monopoly on the market when we're 
> sitting
> : here using something else?
>
> Is this a serious question?

Perhaps rhetorical, since the full answer is not really on-topic. You 
could say that the USPS has a monopoly on letter delivery, because 
nobody else can do it. If you use monopoly to describe a freely made 
choice, then it becomes an essentially meaningless term.

But my point is more about the general idea that PC users don't 
actually choose to use PCs, they're somehow trapped or tricked into it. 
There are plenty of people who explicitly let someone else make the 
choice for them (e.g. I let my son/niece/etc. pick my computer because 
they know about those things). But the vast majority of people pick the 
PC because they *want* it. That's the cold reality that most Mac people 
don't want to face. The typical PC user will complain about Microsoft 
and mock the Mac in the same breath.

Going on about Microsoft's "monopoly" just reinforces the denial of 
self responsibility - that someone else is responsible for their crappy 
computing experience. Certainly, not every person can make the choice 
in the work environment, but they can still pick their own computers. 
I've used a Mac at home, even while being the chief software architect 
for a 100% PC company. So no, I don't engage in the delusion that 
Microsoft has a "monopoly" on personal computing.

SR