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by SkiFire13 718 days ago
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.
1 comments
Wytwwww 718 days ago
> 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?

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lesuorac 718 days ago
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).

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ThunderSizzle 718 days ago
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.

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lesuorac 718 days ago
> 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.

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SideburnsOfDoom 718 days ago
> 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.

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