Then God bless that the United States is a Republic[1] and not a Democracy, such that my rights should never be beholden to such contemptible motives.
Also, this is a very materialistic view of money. You falsely assume that money's sole use is the acquisition of material goods, and not what it really is, the transfer of value.
Wealthy and poor alike choose to donate to and support causes they see as perpetuating their values. Are you really suggesting that an individual that wants for no goods to consume has no use of money? No.
What you are proposing is that to those who refuse, by virtue of their property rights, to give you what you want, you would take from them at the point of a gun upon non-compliance that which they would not give you. _This_ is the tyranny of the majority, a true democracy, a form of government our founding fathers held in disdain.
I suspect that you hold this view of money because you find that no amount of it would grant you the power to take that which you desire to obtain through a democracy, the violation of other rights.
Self-righteous indignation ahoy! We must have entered yet another ideal-free-markets vs. everything else discussion on Hacker News.
Frustrated as you may be that others don't share your ideals here, your entire comment is huge, deep red, herring.
And there is much more to monopolies than just 'success', you silly. Ever heard of the Microsoft tax? Every OEM was in a losing position if they dared to offer a non-Microsoft OS among their product lines, as they would be sold their licenses at a higher cost (i.e., not at a monetary discount resulting of a virtuous association between entrepreneurs) than every other player in the game.
Thus, even if there was demand for alternatives, if it didn't overtake the loss incurred by higher cost-licenses then it wouldn't be viable to offer say, Linux machines.
I don't expect anyone to share my values, nor do I care if they do for the sake of the argument, as you'll note below where I went out of my way to thank @arg01 for his reasoned argument.
You probably won't like this, but those businesses existed because of what Microsoft created and it deserved to charge whatever it liked to its customers. We are speaking here of rights, not virtues or morality, so you'll find my "self-righteous indignation" to be in short supply. Just as Microsoft was free to charge what they liked for the fruits of their labor, OEMs were free to not attempt to profit off a product Microsoft created. Microsoft made its money from selling software, an intangible thing of no value without hardware to run it on. Those OEMs existed because they were able to create hardware better than Microsoft. Obviously though, it was Windows that was of more value (more difficult to create) of the two, which is why Microsoft held more leverage. This is a _good_ thing to have success rewarded.
No company has a right to profits. In a free market they must compete by the merits of the value they offer to free men.
Also, this is a very materialistic view of money. You falsely assume that money's sole use is the acquisition of material goods, and not what it really is, the transfer of value.
Wealthy and poor alike choose to donate to and support causes they see as perpetuating their values. Are you really suggesting that an individual that wants for no goods to consume has no use of money? No.
What you are proposing is that to those who refuse, by virtue of their property rights, to give you what you want, you would take from them at the point of a gun upon non-compliance that which they would not give you. _This_ is the tyranny of the majority, a true democracy, a form of government our founding fathers held in disdain.
I suspect that you hold this view of money because you find that no amount of it would grant you the power to take that which you desire to obtain through a democracy, the violation of other rights.
[1] Art. 4 Sec. 4 Par. 1 http://www.house.gov/house/Constitution/Constitution.html