internet browser hysteria?
 

As with the thread about social networks, please bear with me: I was born during the commie times in Eastern Europe, I had no economy/business class at high school (and when I got to the university we had such "useful" classes such as philosophy), so apparently I'm not ready for the modern world...
...or maybe it's because I think independently?

Last spring a media campaign promoting IE9 started in my country, I saw the TV spot (again) yesterday. This only reminded me old questions I never got answers to.

1. Why all this craze about Internet browsers, monopoly et all?
Nobody noticed that Windows also came with pre-installed simple text editor (Write/Wordpad) and that's monopolistic move as well? I don't recall any legal battle about that? How about media player, firewall etc. - there are stand-alone paid products for these functions offered by other companies, why no anti-Microsoft-monopoly shows regarding these?

2. Why invest zillions of $ in advertising a supplementary application for your OS that's available for free? Which competes with other browsers, also available for free, like Firefox? Today even Opera has free full version, none of these display, say, ads to generate revenue... so where's the money? Who gets more $ if Firefox takes over the IE - or vice versa?

Even before I tried to learn webdesign I hated the fact that we have so many browsers, so many standards...

And yet, any form of competition is infinitely preferable to monopoly. Look at what happened after Netscape died ... IE stagnated for ages. Not that I'm entirely happy with the way that Firefox is being run currently, and chrome leaves a lot to be desired, but drag me back to IE? Nevar ^^

Of course you probably never used IE since Netscape times, arete. :p

Guys, I don't want this thread to become another "X browser is better than Y" or "IE suxx" flame war. And I didn't even say that one browser would be the best solution.

Simply answer me why I don't see spots like "use Holy Microsoft Media Player, VLC player is leftist and gay" things, but the whole thing revolves around Internet browsers?

You see, there is no simple answer, it's complicated, it's even damn complicated.

However in answer to your first post:
http://www.technobuffalo.com/interne...on-make-money/
Even if the article doesn't cover everything, it's a good reading.

Nowadays things got even more euuuuurhhh .... complicated, yep.
Ties and strings all around, think handhelds with internet, tablets, several OSses using .... aaaarrrggghhhh....

...... yep, it's damn complicated.

It is not complicated at all. The goal of those marketing campaigns is to gain direct monopoly. Once you get that, you can do whatever you want without getting bothered about it. This mean stagnating, dropping customer support (i.e. not having to spend money or a great deal of money on new features or support), boosting the price of products to your liking even though you offer nothing great in return, etc.

Anybody who don't see that don't have a lot of perception depth toward capitalism... :shifty:

You don't absolutely have to upgrade you know. I've been using the same version of FF for ages now, I think two versions got over my head already... And it's working flawlessly for what I want it to do.

I remember I used to do that with IE and MSN Messenger too, in those dark past days...

You think that was different in "capitalist" countries... Funny. It was only different AFTER you got out of the state-mandated educational system, and had to get a job. At (elementary/school) I was taught nothing about economy/BA, of course, but of course we had philosophy and Latin.

Hmmm +1 it's complicated, first of all it's about "business models". Nowadays browsers get most income from redirecting to search engines and stuff... However there are other sources of income.

A curious example of business model is Opera. It has more features than any other, and it's ported to many more platforms than any other, without being open sourced. After a foray into legit adware in the 90s, their current business model is that they build a name for themselves making a browser for the PC, where most people will have the chance to learn about their brand--and there's no chance of charging since everyone in the competition is giving their browsers away for free; and they get some money by charging OEMs of platforms such as mobile, Nintendo Wii, ebook readers...

You're questioning really basic things that everybody accepts as granted, which is good IMO--since I happen to agree with you. This is a political issue. Is it a crime to ship applications with your OS? Then Linus Torvalds should be in jail. Is it liable to become crime but only if it gets a certain market share? IMO the current mainstream opinion about competition is that "defending competition" means punishing success a posteriori, even if this success was earned in free competition.

Right, just like IBM was able to do whatever they wanted after they got their "monopoly"... Until they stopped serving customers as efficiently as their newly appeared competitors in hardware (Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard) and their former insignificant software contractor Microsoft. Then they got kicked out of business and IBM is (almost) no more.

Yup, that's exactly it.

I'm not saying it is very logical but that's exactly how it works. And even though IBM has been driven away from the business in your example, if they made plenty of money back then with that scheme those VIP big guns most probably considered the whole thing as a huge success.

When you are a CEO or whatever, making money is all what matter.

I know, I'm not even a CEO but for some reason I'd still like to maximize my income! :what: I ought to be ashamed.

Making money? OH GOD NO! /sarcasim

I remember the whole I.E Netscape thing barely and even as a young person it sounded like the dumbest thing ever. Netscape has always been the one in the wrong to me, they lost market share and instead of making their product better to get it back they sued Microsoft. Netscape wasn't just a Internet browser it did mail and a bunch of other stuff and I don't think it was always free. So there is more to the story then I remember or know.

Microsoft has the money to throw some down a well and advertise their browser even if they never get any money back out of it. I am also sure that in some way Mozilla/Google/Apple and the like are all getting money from their "free" browsers. Remember Google has a free search engine, they sure as hell get a lot of money out of that one.

I would say the reason you don't see any law suits over media players or anything else Microsoft has coming with their OS is cause they locked down their Terms of Service/Use and got smart about the law and how to stop any lawsuits about it. And no one has been brave enough to try and step into the ring with a giant who can spend more money on lawyers then they do on their entire staff.