Competition plays a critical role in the evolving technological market. Therefore, allowing a technological monopoly to take over the internet environment would have been challenging. As noted in the article, there are high chances that the Microsoft monopoly would have hidden away the establishment of Google, Facebook, and Amazon (Blumenthal & Wu, 2018). Monopoly refers to a market where a company becomes the sole supplier. Its pricing creates a deadweight loss, given that organizations forgo transactions with the customers. For instance, antitrust efforts ideas were mainly based on the perception that a monopoly market will raise prices for the consumers. This was true since a monopoly company can set any price it wishes without minding the customers’ pocket. However, this was not Microsoft’s goal since it offered free products. Instead, it aimed to kill the market competition in the technological sector. Economically, this could have led to an inefficient and less innovative market over time since it did not have any competitors in the marketplace.
Conversely, the article showed the abuse of power that can result in a market failure. This is whereby it explains that the firms including Microsoft, Facebook, and Google have exerted a lot of control over our shared technological future. Furthermore, a firm like Facebook has acquired its most obvious competitors, such as Instagram and WhatsApp, thus shutting down the competition in this sector. In a real sense, a market failure occurs when a business establishes a price mechanism without considering all the costs and benefits of providing and consuming a given product. In this case, the firms can hardly fail since it has been established that people pay for these products and services with the time they spend using the applications and data. The great achievement of these firms is that they have taken control of our technological minds and shut down competition.
On the other hand, if the antitrust acknowledged Microsoft’s perception, we could live in an imperfect market that restricts output to increase revenue. However, the article has shown a critical innovation cycle whereby big firms try to prevent the upcoming firms from flourishing. For instance, Microsoft benefitted from the 1980s antitrust case against IBM but now attempts to create a monopoly marketplace environment (Blumenthal & Wu, 2018). It failed to understand that it can be hard to self-regulate and remain competitive in a marketplace without competitors.
The web has created a powerful platform for the current societies whereby they can conduct business and advertise over the internet. However, web browsers display business websites differently, and therefore it is the responsibility of every business to ensure its website displays the necessary information appropriately. What would have happened if Microsoft had acquired the power to tame the internet as it wanted? It could have controlled the future of the web, and hence applications such as Google, Firefox, and others could not have been established.
In conclusion, the world needs innovation and marketplace competition to yield the future. Moreover, monopoly is dangerous to our economy and should be highly discouraged so as promote innovations and advance the evolving technology. Businesses should not worry about the upcoming threats but should derive the best from these threats through establishing new ideas that promote growth. As stated in the article, it would be wrong for the world to trust a single organization to decide the future.
Reference
Blumenthal, R., & Wu, T. (2018). What the Microsoft Antitrust Case Taught Us. The New York Times.
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