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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 10 2013 @ 04:28 AM EDT |
The problem is that Google is not offering "below-cost" software, but
that they have a mixed business model based on advertising where the software
pays well for Google's part of its development.
The strategic decision not to charge for the software itself and the ability to
put up third-party building blocks in source cheaply means that Google is
perfectly positioned for exploiting free software for their own gain.
That's not "unfair" as much as picking a better business model based
on the availability of free software. It's as unfair to Microsoft as
automobiles were to horse breeders.
Now for better or worse, Google has little competition right now regarding quite
a few of their core products, and part of the reason is that their revenue
models don't fit with normal business practices. And that means that Google is
quite poised to get monopoly positions in a number of enterprises where other
companies just don't have an idea how to make money.
And whenever they do, they are not allowed to cross-subsidize because of
antimonopoly laws.
But their advertising income is not cross-subsidy: it is the core mechanism of
monetizing their enterprises. So it would not make sense to prohibit them from
using advertising-related revenues for producing new advertising-related
business.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 22 2013 @ 12:28 PM EDT |
I can copy Android freely, and my computer uses no more
power than if it was just running the idle loop.
How is "free" below cost, when there is no expense?
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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