World's richest woman says 'jealous' poor should work harder

[helmuth_hubener]

Quality vs. monopoly. Pretty big difference.

Again, tulsa, people can disagree about whether or not product/service X is junk or terrific. And they almost always do. That's why there's so much variety on the market. People have such different value systems. In your post, you elaborate why:

1) Apple's products were awesome
2) Microsoft's were junk

You point, I assume, is that is it a very lamentable thing that Microsoft became a multi-hundred-billion dollar company purveying junk. What a waste, you say. If only people had been smarter and bought Apple products instead.

I don't particularly disagree with you. I don't need to. I just want to make sure you understand that the only way to easily fix these kinds of problems, problems caused by people's faulty preferences, is to force those faulty people -- at gunpoint if necessary -- to stop being faulty and start agreeing with you. Do you understand and agree with that statement?

Everyone's preferences are subjective. One man's junk is another man's treasure. Some prefer Sony to Samsung, others prefer Samsung to Sony. From your perspective, the Microsoft customers were not getting a good deal. But from their perspective, they were. We should all honor our neighbor's choice. If our neighbors choose to make Bill Gates rich, we should accept that, even if we do not celebrate it.

[RickyJ]

The only reason most people use Windows today, is that it comes on their computer when they buy it and many don't even realize that they can use their computer without windows. Some people think Windows IS the computer. Like those dumb ads about I'm a PC. Windows and its applications are not needed by 90% of all people, they just don't need it. The other 10% can also use Linux and their windows applications with Windows simulators.

[acptulsa]

I don't particularly disagree with you. I don't need to. I just want to make sure you understand that the only way to easily fix these kinds of problems, problems caused by people's faulty preferences, is to force those faulty people -- at gunpoint if necessary -- to stop being faulty and start agreeing with you. Do you understand and agree with that statement?

Everyone's preferences are subjective. One man's junk is another man's treasure. Some prefer Sony to Samsung, others prefer Samsung to Sony. From your perspective, the Microsoft customers were not getting a good deal. But from their perspective, they were. We should all honor our neighbor's choice. If our neighbors choose to make Bill Gates rich, we should accept that, even if we do not celebrate it.

The only thing I like less than being talked down to is having words put in my mouth.

Microsoft customers thought they were getting a good deal because they thought of the software as coming on the machine for free. In fact, they were paying for it, and the only reason they were paying for it is because no builder of IBM compatible hardware would ship it preinstalled with anything else. And if the federal government can be believed (and I'm not saying it can), the methods Gates used to create this monopoly for his garbage was neither free market stuff nor particularly ethical.

So much for your theory that the only way to create or end a monopoly is with firearms. Oh, sorry, You said easily in that statement, a handy weasel word that prevents it from being one hundred percent silly.

The free market, like the Constitution, would indeed work a lot better if more people paid more attention, and bought (and voted) less from impulse and after more research. Now you may place words in my mouth to the effect that either I think the free market is broken, that I want to be czar of it and make it work right, or that I'm a hopeless romantic clinging to the notion that it could be perfect if only the education, or the regulation, or whatever were in place to protect the wilfully ignorant.

Meanwhile, I'll save myself later trouble and deny the words you're about to put in my mouth right now.

[helmuth_hubener]

The only thing I like less than being talked down to is having words put in my mouth.

I very much regret to have been putting words in your mouth. What words did I put there? Nothing I can find in the section of my post your quoted. The only place I can find where I claimed you to be saying something was the following:

In your post, you elaborate why:

1) Apple's products were awesome
2) Microsoft's were junk

If this was an unfair characterization of your post, I apologize. Would you please correct me? That is, could you explain what is wrong about this and what you were actually saying? I mean, it's a simplification and exaggeration, sure, but I thought it was a fair one. Anyway, please explain yourself so we can understand you better. Thanks.

As for talking down to you, I did not do that. I wrote to you of fairly high-level, complex ideas, with the expectation that you would understand. I was making the assumption that you are an intelligent, literate person. I wrote to you as I would write to an intelligent person whom I respected. I do not understand why you think I was talking down to you, if you do think that. But, perhaps you don't think I was talking down to you at all, and were just mentioning that as an aside having nothing to do with me.

Hoping to clear this all up,

Helmuth

[acptulsa]

I very much regret to have been putting words in your mouth. What words did I put there?

I said nothing about 'faulty people'. Nothing at all. And I have enough respect for the free market that I don't wish to be lectured on the subject by someone who thinks in terms of consumers being 'faulty'. Especially when it seems that the assumption was made that I don't understand markets because I was discussing a monopoly at the time.

[helmuth_hubener]

I said nothing about 'faulty people'. Nothing at all. And I have enough respect for the free market that I don't wish to be lectured on the subject by someone who thinks in terms of consumers being 'faulty'. Especially when it seems that the assumption was made that I don't understand markets because I was discussing a monopoly at the time.

OK, wow. I don't know if our conversation is salvageable, which is what I was trying to do, since you've already decided all these terrible things about me.

I feel like you think I said a lot of things which I did not, in fact, say. Or certainly did not intend to. And when someone gets so upset at another, rightly or wrongly, then communication can no longer happen. I guess I would encourage you to go back and read my post again with the idea that "Helmuth is not attacking me here".

Here's hoping,

[angelatc]

The only reason most people use Windows today, is that it comes on their computer when they buy it and many don't even realize that they can use their computer without windows. Some people think Windows IS the computer. Like those dumb ads about I'm a PC. Windows and its applications are not needed by 90% of all people, they just don't need it. The other 10% can also use Linux and their windows applications with Windows simulators.

The only reason that Apple even exists today is because Microsoft bought a huge chunk of it to keep them in business, presumably to avoid the inevitable anti-monopoly lawsuits they would have faced if that happened.

I was there - I watched it happen. Apple went after the wrong market. They went after the consumer. They were pretty confident in themselves, to the extent that when IBM announced it was entering the personal computer maket, APple took out a full page ad in either the NYT or the WSJ - I forget - saying "Welcome!"

They were that cocky. They didn't realize that the guy who sat behind the IBM computer at work all day would want a personal machine that would allow him to take his work back and forth from home. Consumers weren't stupid enough to buy a computer that didn't allow them to easily transfer data between home and office.

Within 2 years, Apple was coughing up serious blood.

[acptulsa]

They were that cocky. They didn't realize that the guy who sat behind the IBM computer at work all day would want a personal machine that would allow him to take his work back and forth from home. Consumers weren't stupid enough to buy a computer that didn't allow them to easily transfer data between home and office.

That's part of it. Part of it was that both Apple and MS were cocky enough to actively prevent the two systems from being able to share data (though private enterpreneurs did come up with certain tricks to make it possible). Microsoft won that showdown because Apple assumed a preference for usability and other hallmarks of quality would appeal as much to business as to anyone. But many a business was perfectly willing to sacrifice the productivity of their staffs for a cheaper system--whether that was good for the bottom line or not.

I kind of remember how we got here--earned money through value provided vs. other methods of snagging sackfuls of the stuff--but I still can't make up my mind if this thread is 'jacked or not.

[thoughtomator]

Anyone who thinks this woman is a "libertarian" ought to read her "poetry" in which she demands "special economic zones" (aka fascism).

She's as much of a libertarian as is Jon Corzine.

[ClydeCoulter]

The only person as silly as someone who claims that every rich person got that way through hard work is someone who claims that every rich person got that way by duping and robbing people and inheriting well.

Steve Wozniak got rich by offering superior hardware on a free market. Bill Gates got rich by turning his inferior software into a monopoly. Both men may have had to do with computers and the results may have all been green on one side and gray on the other, but these paths to wealth are as different as night and day.

So, to all of you who are pushing this thread to a hundred pages by claiming 'I'm right and you're wrong all the time,' I say that you're both wrong all the time. You both want the world to be as simple and as intuitive as a ball point pen. You can't have it that way.

Wow, I totally disagree with your assement of why Bill Gates was successful. It was because his operating system made sense. It's pretty fucked up now that he's not in control of it and the same "users are losers" a$$holes got control of it.
I've been there throughout the whole thing, from DOS 2.0 on, writing drivers and software. He made computers affordable for the average guy, like me. I tried to help IBM get on the wagon, but they were too hard headed. All of the other computer/operating system companies (originals, not copies) could have made it, they all had the same chance.
You would have to understand the "what" he did for "programers & users" to understand "why" it was successful.