It’s finally coming together the way Pierpoint Morgan wanted it.
Free markets be damned, he wanted a managed economy.
Manhattan:
Sure, to some degree AOL is just a gateway with value added… But, it may not always be so.
RoadRunner, a cable modem service in the states, has a ToS (term(s) of service) that prohibits watching more than ten minutes of streaming video from a non-RoadRunner site.
Supposedly this is to limit the bandwidth, but it’s a very arbitrary way. Your ten minute video might be smaller than my game demo, etc.
It can be seen as an attempt to limit people’s usage of the net, so that they’ll go to RoadRunner sites instead.
@Home (my cablemodem provider (via Rogers cable, Ted Turner of Canada)) prohibits running servers of any kind. A very undefined law, because most peer-to-peer services actually have one end as a client. So if they choose to enforce it, it could ban much multiplayer gaming, internet telephony, VPNs, and many other things we take for granted as internet services. No doubt they’d offer their own product to replace what they ban.
With a monopoly on local high-speed access, they have a fair bit of freedom when it comes to what they can forbid you to do.
AOL might only be a very vertical company, not a monopoly, but in some markets, they’ll be the only high-speed service available, and I don’t doubt they’ll use that to push the T&W line of products and services at the user.
It’s not the end of the world, but media access is very important to keep open and imho is more fragile than some other markets.
Not saying that the merger can’t go through, just that there are many reasons why it may not be good if it does. The FTC should take a good look at it.
Monopolies can be defined as “vertical” or “horizontal”. An example of a vertical monopoly would be an oil company owning everything from the little gas station, to the distributor, and all the way back to the refinery. An example of a horizontal monopoly would be owning all means, from the iron ore mines to the steel mills.
The AOL merger may border on a horizontal monopoly, and the FTC has to give it’s final blessing…which the news anticipates.
A weird twist to monopolies is that, now with NAFTA, etc., the FTC can prevent a company from buying up other companies within the same hemisphere! Sound unbelieveable? It’s true! The FTC recently prevented a large corp (Brand X) from buying up its major (European) competitor - Brand Y. It was deemed “anti-trust” on a global scale now that we’re in a global economy. That’s the fact, Jack.
The real question is…what took the courts soooo long to rule against Microsoft? And, when does just plain old fierce but “friendly competition” become “anti-trust”?
The scary thing is that 90% of the people think they’re above average! - unknown
Well, here’s an interesting take on the corporate history of America www.adbusters.org/magazine/28/usa.html
btw, how do you post a hyperlink?
Larry
never mind
Speaking of monopolies-how come the lawyers have a monopoly on the practice of law? Why hasn’t some entrepreneur tried to sue a state bar association on an anti trust model?
Because you can’t sue if you aren’t a lawyer 