Re: Don't bash Microsoft (was A89: Sim City 68k)


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Re: Don't bash Microsoft (was A89: Sim City 68k)




>There is a difference, however.  Microsoft is evil and AOL
>is (as close as can be expected for a big corporation)
>good.  Microsoft is anti-consumer and AOL is pro-
>consumer.  Microsoft will happily do things that
>seriously damage the economy and the general public
>for a few dollars, while AOL is looking after the brisk
>and proper development of the Internet and taking huge
>losses for it.

AOL is evil too.


>Microsoft's business practice is built on forcibly limiting
>competition and artificially controlling prices, as well
>as tricking companies and consumers out of rights.
>"You only have one option, and that's us."  They were
>taking consumer rights away when they stopped
>giving out the media, they're continuing it with pay-per-
>reinstall, and they're rapidly moving toward operating
>system rental.  And remember what MS did to Java?
>Horrid.

What did AOL do to Java? Nothing, they barely support it.

>
>AOL, on the other hand, is a strong supporter of open-
>source.  They are the proud owners of Netscape and
>mozilla (your only true alternative to MSIE).  They
>opened up the AIM network to end-users (a free
>service that costs a huge amount to service and has
>basically no revenue, save a tiny bit from the new
>AOL users recruited from the ads in AOL's AIM client)
>until MS ruined it for us all and decided to take
>advantage of it and siphon off AIM's users, as well as
>placing their user load on AOL-owned servers without
>payment or even notification!

Netscape has sucked lately (but I won't use IE.) OmniWeb or iCab for 
me. AOL refuses to let other into it's AIM network. And don't forget 
what they did to ICQ.

>AOL got a bad wrap for the busy-signal problems
>a few years back.  Keep in mind, they attained this
>problem by underestimating the incredible load that
>would result from their conversion to unlimited-rate
>billing.  Think of the positive impact that move had
>on the Internet though.  What if the majority of ISP's
>still charged by the hour?  The net wouldn't be such
>an active place.  It's growth would be stunted by
>years.  AOL owns such popular applications as ICQ,
>Winamp, and Netscape.  Those programs aren't
>perfect, but I don't see them getting any worse!  And
>how much does it cost you to use them?  Now let's
>compare to what happened when MS bought
>hotmail.

They aren't being upgraded, so they can't get worse. Netscape 6 is a 
HUGE joke. AOL was one of the LAST Isps to go to flat rate, and it 
still costs more than others. Hotmail always sucked anywho.

They removed mp3 search on winamp.com and they forced gnutella to 
crawl into the closet.

>AOL EARNED their monopoly and is artificially
>inflating their price to $0.00US (and eating the losses).
>Microsoft STOLE theirs, first from witless giants (like
>Xerox), then from small startups trying to compete,
>and last from us, the end-users (by not giving us what
>we bought).  Their artificially inflated price?  More than
>you paid for your CPU.

? what? Its 21.95 they raised their prices a year or so ago. No. MS 
stole their stuff from Apple. Apple was practically given it by Xerox 
(xerox thought it couldn't be marketed). MS buys competition. AOL 
just buys things randomly it seems.

>AOL is Microsoft's only worthy corporate competitor
>(Microsoft's only worthy non-corporate competitor
>being linux, attacking from the opposite side).  AOL
>is the White Knight.  And don't you forget it.

Yeah, so why does AOL use MSIE as its browser rather than netscape, 
the one they own?



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