[swores]

> At the end of the day it should only matter if Microsoft's practices are hurting consumers rather than their competitors.

On the one hand that's a broadly reasonable goal, however the point of having laws preventing anti-competitive behaviour is founded in the logic that one company unfairly preventing there being competition from other companies is in itself a form of consumer harm due to the fact that it both prevents consumers from having choice, and also therefore in the longer term allows the monopolistic company to raise prices without consumers having any option other than to pay more or go without.

So in reality the harming or competitors can be considered the harming of consumers.

[ThunderSizzle]

However, this is an interesting problem. By nature of competition, every customer a competitor takes is a customer missed. So when is competition anti-competive?

In the story above, a competitor to Teams couldn't "keep up". Is that really Microsoft's problem? Should Microsoft have made Teams more useless, more expensive, or less integrated so that competitors that couldn't make their own cheaper or better version had a chance to keep getting customers?

[Perseids]

Market concentration is really the underlying problem. Microsoft should never have been allowed to buy GitHub. Microsoft Windows should have long been split into a separate company to Microsoft Office etc. If there wasn't this one gigantic business, then whichever smaller business made Teams would have a much more equal footing with other competitors, as they would not be at an unfair advantage for integration into other currently-Microsoft-owned products as well as the aggressive bundling Microsoft does with Teams.

[ThunderSizzle]

The number of anti-Microsoft people that still use Github is astounding to me, and then just blame Microsoft for buying it.

At some point, if people want an alternative to Github, perhaps it starts with people not using Github and switching to alternatives.

Honestly, it would seem people like market concentration. I don't think people like having to use multiple repository management websites. However, I do wish it was centralization in experience over a federated system, rather than what we have noe. e.g. a "source control browser" that normalizes github, bitbucket, sourceforce, sourcehut, etc. into a single seamless interface.

But even that doesn't seem to be high on anyone's list.

[swores]

> "The number of anti-Microsoft people that still use Github is astounding to me, and then just blame Microsoft for buying it."

Voting with your wallet (or with your attention & time for free things) makes sense if there's an alternative you can choose that's as good as the one from the company you dislike, or if you consider the impact on you of any deficits in the alternative to be less important than sending a message by voting with your wallet/time.

But it's completely understandable, and very common, for people to be in a situation that while they want to boycott a company/product because of how they act in some way (from software UI decisions to using child labour in sweatshops to...) but are faced with the choice between using/buying one of their products or suffering from what they consider to be a significantly worse and/or more expensive product.

And if you wish that one or both of Microsoft selling / giving away Github, or MS changing how they run Github, would happen, then why not publicly express blame in the hope that enough similar complaints build pressure, regardless of whether you're avoiding it or feeling you need to use it?

(Personally I don't feel I use Github enough to be a useful voice on how MS have handled it since the acquisition, but I feel like many people have expressed being pleasantly surprised that they've broadly let Github be Github, at least compared to worst-case fears of how much they might try to make it more Microsofty.)

[godzillabrennus]

Network effect. Especially for open source. The thinking is basically that GitHub is where developers find your project so if you don’t use GitHub you won’t find developers.

[vips7L]

I think this ignores just how much better GitHub is compared to its competitors — at least from my experience of using bitbucket at work. GitHub rightfully should have more market share.

[ClumsyPilot]

> The number of anti-Microsoft people that still use Github is astounding to me

This is silly, they will just buy up all the competition, what choose will you have

[Wytwwww]

I'm not sure that's so obvious these days at least. The era of tech mega corps just being able to buy up all the competition seems to be mostly over(ish) for now (.e.g Figma, ARM, Broadcom/Qualcomm, Visa/Plaid)

[SkiFire13]

Microsoft forced anyone wanting to buy the Office suite to also buy Teams. That's actively harming customers, because they didn't get the choice to pay less and only buy what they wanted (which is just Office).

Once customers bought Office+Teams the cost of using Teams is 0, because they paid for it. How can competitors make a cheaper product then? You can't get cheaper than that! Even if someone wanted to use your product they most likely would still have to pay for Teams by buying Office.

[Wytwwww]

> Microsoft forced anyone wanting to buy the Office suite to also buy Teams

True, but that also applies to every other single app and service that they are bundling with the subscription. I only want Excel but I'm also forced to pay for PowerPoint. And how deep should we go? Should they be forced to turn Edge into a paid product you have to buy separately? They crippled if not outright killed the consumer anti-virus industry by starting to bundle Windows Defender/(whatever it's called)? That certainly wasn't fair to McAfee/Norton/Kaspersky/(any other shovel ware provider) but did it hurt consumers? One might argue this would also apply to [File] Explorer and every other basic app.

How is the situation with Teams at all different and where exactly do we draw the line?

[lesuorac]

When it's a separate application I think the line has already been drawn.

I don't think you should have to turn Edge into a paid product similar to how I don't think grocery stores should be forced to charge you if you use a shopping cart. If Microsoft wants to include Windows Defender for free but if they're increasing the cost of a Windows License to accommodate that development effort then it's not ok.

Microsoft can offer you a volume discount for buying say Excel + Word + X but bundling is anti-competitve (see every complaint about TV bundles ever).

[ThunderSizzle]

But bundling exists everywhere. Why is Microsoft the only offender?

Like you pointed out with cable, if I want just Disney Kids on cable, I need to buy all of Disney's channels, including ABC, etc. This is because that's how the cable provider has to buy it from the networks.

Why aren't they being told they have to unbundled channels from each other? I can't pay per view sports games - they offer subscriptions that bundle the entire season. The NFL is the worst on this. Why can't I just pay a few bucks to watch one game?

It seems like if bundling Teams with Office is that big of a deal, then customers should stop using Office, and use a competitor, just like I avoid cable.

[lesuorac]

> But bundling exists everywhere. Why is Microsoft the only offender?

You can't regulate every offender at the exact same time. Who you go after and when is always a political decision. This is basically the claim everybody was making when Android was in anti-trust trouble and everybody was like "How can you go after Android when Apple has a walled garden" and now Apple is in a hot seat.

Look how long it took for TicketMaster/LiveNation to get into the hot seat. Yes, it's not really fair that people get to cause problems for so long before being punished but that's life and it doesn't mean you should give people a free pass since you can't go after them all at once.

> Why aren't they being told they have to unbundled channels from each other? I can't pay per view sports games - they offer subscriptions that bundle the entire season. The NFL is the worst on this. Why can't I just pay a few bucks to watch one game?

I wouldn't argue that Panthers v Patriots is a different application than Broncos v Buccaneers.

Although I think I was fairly clear in my other post that I think the cable bundling is anti-competitive.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Why can't I just pay a few bucks to watch one game?

You could argue that preventing this is a positive bundling. e.g. the Cup final game doesn't exist without the first round games and quarter-finals, and the other league matches that you don't want to pay for. They need to be subsidised or the whole thing might not work or won't be as good.

But "you can't buy x without y" where x and y are in different markets is (ahem) a different ballgame.

[ClumsyPilot]

> In the story above, a competitor to Teams couldn't "keep up". Is that really Microsoft's problem?

If Microsoft start providing kickbacks and bribes to CTOs for choosing Microsoft, many competitors won’t be able to keep up. Is that Microsoft’s problem?

No, it’s our problem. We get to decide what they are allowed to do, whats fair and what isn’t.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Should Microsoft have made Teams more useless,

Hard to see how.

MS could devote resources to making MS Teams more useful, but they don't have to, so they don't.

It's not competing with Slack on features and usability or fun. It's competing with Slack on "you get a chat app and hey, it's free (with office)" and that makes the board happy.

[ThunderSizzle]

I dont disagree with that. Honestly, I think chat should just go away in favor of emails and meetings (and meeting minutes). I've had too much business knowledge disappear into the Slack or Teams void that I can never get back.

[linuxandrew]

> In the story above, a competitor to Teams couldn't "keep up". Is that really Microsoft's problem? Should Microsoft have made Teams more useless, more expensive, or less integrated so that competitors that couldn't make their own cheaper or better version had a chance to keep getting customers?

Well, they should at very least make Teams interoperable like every other goddamn service should be - or be forced to do so.