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Julian Sanchez | June 21, 2005

Kerry Howley suggests that civil libertarians cut Microsoft some slack for providing trivially crippled free-speech software to Chinese bloggers. Dong ma?

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|6.21.05 @ 7:16PM|#

duibuqi. Any time you have the words Microsoft and ban, security, crippled or hell, just pick one, there will be a cacophony of anti-MS sentiment from any of the great hoards of MS fighters. Add China in and get the evangelical democratists, even if they happen to like MS. I think the odds of there being any slack cut to be substantially less than slim.

Personally, I'll be fine until I hear cries of pohuai coming from the other side of the xiaofang zhan.

|6.21.05 @ 8:21PM|#

I agree with Kerry, one should never let little silly things, like liberty, stand in the way of a business deal.

|6.21.05 @ 9:13PM|#

in china it's easy to blog about eedom-fray if you eak-spay ig-pay atin-lay.

|6.21.05 @ 11:02PM|#

Dong ma?

Are you about to help Mal and Zoe rob the train to Paradiso.

raymond|6.22.05 @ 12:03AM|#

;-)

|6.22.05 @ 12:56AM|#

The kids aren't perusing BBC, they're playing Counterstrike and chatting with their friends.

This just proves how well the government's strategy of keeping the people happy by opening up the markets - while keeping a tight grip on their actual freedom - is working. This is the difference between 1989 and now, and why there are no longer any major signs of resistance (except in Hong Kong); it's playing exactly the way the government wants it.

|6.22.05 @ 2:43AM|#

raymond's jab gave me an idea for one way the Chinese can get around the restrictions. Don't type out the character for freedom, link or display an image of the word freedom. Especially if it's an animated gif that frequently changes, the censors will be SOL if they try to prevent that.

|6.22.05 @ 2:59AM|#

This just proves how well the government's strategy of keeping the people happy by opening up the markets - while keeping a tight grip on their actual freedom - is working.

A personal experience bears this out- I had a Chinese co-worker, who told me that in China, you could keep all your money, and one just had to keep quiet about politics, but in the States the government took all your money even though you get to vote. His implication was that the former was preferable. I had to point out to him that due to communist interference in the economy, perhaps his Chinese paycheck would have been pre-reduced, which he did seem to grudgingly acknowledge.

Yet perhaps most tellingly is that he got his green card as fast as humanly possible and as far as I know is still here in the states.

|6.22.05 @ 3:01AM|#

Strike that -ly from tellingly.

When are we going to get the ability to edit posts?

|6.22.05 @ 3:42AM|#

When are we going to get the ability to edit posts?

Mispellings should exist in perpetuity.

|6.22.05 @ 5:40AM|#

Bu hao

|6.22.05 @ 7:57AM|#

I don't buy the arguments. Any company worth it's salt has pride in their product. Sure, to stay in business there has to be flexibility and adaptation, but it can only go so far, before they become whores.

Microsoft offers products that foster communication. To restrict communication in that way betrays the integrity of the product. Bill Gates is a whore.

David Woycechowsky|6.22.05 @ 9:27AM|#

If Microsoft had gron into its size and tactics before the Reagan presidency, it would have been busted as a trust. That is what should have happened. Then the Chinese government would not be able to so efficiently use MS to repress its subjects.

There would be other benefits too, arising of more decentralized competition. MS sucks. Trusts suck and they violate the precepts of capitalism.

|6.22.05 @ 9:37AM|#

There's a penguin here who says he may have a solution to all of this.

David Woycechowsky|6.22.05 @ 9:43AM|#

That penguin would be waddling along a lot faster if the OS trust wasn't reaching out in a horizontal direction and colluding with the hardware makers. Like, I said "other benefits too."

|6.22.05 @ 10:35AM|#

David, what are you smoking?

Without the MS monopoly, Linux would be about as uniquitous as Minix.

The lack of alternatives drove developers to submit the feateures they wanted to the Linus and his lieutenants. If BeOS et al. had been available for purchase, the Free Software and Open Source movements would be mere curiosities.

In other words, the free market is working - yet another monopoly that stops trying to keep its customers happy is being dethroned.

|6.22.05 @ 10:36AM|#

David-That's definitely a problem. The only thing that has kept me from doing a full install of Linux is that I can't find a friggin printer driver for my Canon. Turns out that it's that way on purpose�canon has no intention of releasing a Linux driver.

|6.22.05 @ 10:40AM|#

s/uniquitous/ubiquitous/
s/the Linus/Linus/
s/feateures/features/

Why the heck do i not see these things when i preview?

|6.22.05 @ 10:50AM|#

From the article: "At least four million Chinese maintain blogs, 55,000 of them on MSN spaces."

If that's a monopoly, they're doing a piss-poor job of it. On the other hand, it does tend to undercut the argument that without MSN, they would have nothing.

David Woycechowsky|6.22.05 @ 10:52AM|#

Number 6: Agree. I made a strong attempt to switch to LINUX in 2002 (I had put it off for a couple years). At that time, I had many hardware issues. Hardware makers then and now seem more enthusiastic to support windows than LINUX. I couldn't make a workable computer system for my needs (although the things that did work looked great). I know the invisible hand, and I know that beautiful hand would not of its own accord create a mess so consumer unfriendly.

David Woycechowsky|6.22.05 @ 11:00AM|#

Chuck:

Why do you think MSN is towing the line in China?

Tell u y. They expect a quid pro quo from the Chinese gov't. Maybe that will be an order shutting down non-MSN blogs. Maybe it will be preferntial tax treatment. Maybe it will be a secret quid pro quo that they mutually choose not to reveal to us Hit n Runners.

Next sensible question: why is the Chinese gov't cutting deals with MSN as opposed to, say, Joe Blow's Blogging Co. Ltd.? MSN has market power and they are using it to leverage greater market power in China. That may not be a monopoly, but it ain't Adam Smith's capitalism either.

|6.22.05 @ 12:00PM|#

Several points:

MS got where it is not by the quality of its product, but by leveraging exclusive licensing deals, and always being "just good enough"

However, until the first Anti-Trust action against them, they spent not a single cent on lobbying efforts.

Once sued, however, they became aware of what a wonderful tool governmenet interference in the economy was. Every settlement they have negotiated has included licensing terms that allowed them to dictate interoperability with their products and given them more experience with dealing with the government officials tasked with interfering with the economy.

In other words, the settlements have served to make it more difficult for competitors to build interoperatign products. Additionally, MS. has turned increasingly to governemnt officials to help it maintain its monopoly.

There are two ways that a monopoly can maintain its monopoly position.

1) Selling its wares at such a low price that a would be competitor does not see the potential sufficient profit to bother enterign the market. This is how ALCOA maintained its monopoly in the thirties and forties.

2) By using force to prevent competitors from entering the market.

What is the most effective way to use force? Simply put, get govenrment officials to do it for you! Bill gates is aware of this fact, which is why he is depserately traveling the globe offering kickbacks to various politicians in return for favourable intervention.

Frankly, the more I learn (in passing) about the motivations behind and the execution of anti-trust actions, to more I am convinced that they are at best unecessary, and nearly always harmful to everybody.

In fact, I have yet to find a monopoly that did not satisfy its custoemrs that was not propped up by government intervention.

|6.22.05 @ 12:03PM|#

David W.--

I could come up with all sorts of conjectures for why Microsoft may be doing something or what sorts of deals they (and others that aren't famous enough to make the news) might be cutting with China, depending on how many layers of tinfoil I choose to put on. My point is that the claim that MSN actually has enough market share now to have "market power" (whatever that means) in China's blogworld has no empirical support.

David Woycechowsky|6.22.05 @ 12:09PM|#

Chuck: You may want to become more familiar with the level of secrecy at which the Chinese government typically operates. Today there is a nice link about this very issue in REASON Online's "The Daily Brickbat" section. Wanton speculation is bad for sure, but my won-ton speculation should be pretty understandable in geopolitical context here.

|6.22.05 @ 1:40PM|#

David--

If they're so good at being secretive, how is it that you know what deals they are planning with Microsoft?

"Wanton speculation is bad for sure, but my won-ton speculation should be pretty understandable in geopolitical context here."

Thank you for affirming my point.

David Woycechowsky|6.22.05 @ 1:54PM|#

Chuck:
Here is how I know:

1. Microsoft doesn't do stuff for free.

2. They didn't announce what consideration they received from China.

3. Ergo, MS must have received consideration that was not announced, that was / is secret.

Of course, this doesn't tell me what the consideration was exactly. Just that there was some and that is all I am asserting here.

David Woycechowsky|6.22.05 @ 1:58PM|#

I missed a step in my reasoning above. My analysis depends on the fact that there are two kinds of quid pro quo, secret and not-secret.

That was why ruling out the non-secret consideration leads so neatly an ineluctably to the conclusion that there is secret quid pro quo here.

You probably figured out this part yourself, but just in case somebody didn't -- this should be helpful.

|6.22.05 @ 3:30PM|#

Nope MS doesn't do stuff for free. In this case what they got was: the ability to do business in China.

Why does there have to be a secret part?

David Woycechowsky|6.22.05 @ 4:59PM|#

Because companies with smaller market share don't have the opportunity to cut the same kind of deal with China. That ain't capitalism, that's cronyism. If China were offering the same deal (whatever it may be) to all of the other blogging companies, then I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem. But they are not. Rather, they are offering it only to the company that already has lots of market power.

This cronyism is bad for two reasons: (1) in China people get repressed (albeit mildly for now) with relative ease and efficiency; and (2) outside of China, a big capitalism-subverting trust gets bigger & more damaging to the prospect of any true capitalist market in computers.

|6.22.05 @ 5:50PM|#

How do you know China is offering any deal to MS, other than saying "here are the rules if you want to play here."

Isn't that exactly how China is treatng all the blogging companies? And how do you figure MS has huge market power in China when they have such a small market share?

I am confused as to what MS is getting that is special here, so special that they would cut a secret deal only you know about.

|6.22.05 @ 9:24PM|#

If Microsoft is following this policy and the other companies are not then we can be pretty sure that MS got a deal that the other companies did not. Are you suggesting that the other blogging companies are putting in the same rules as MS in China?

If they are then I will quit my belly-aching.

If they aren't then I smell a stinky "sweetheart" deal.

If China makes non-MSN blogs illegal (or effectively illegal) within a year then: (1) we will know get to know what the secret quid pro quo was; and (2) you will owe me a coke.

|6.22.05 @ 10:37PM|#

Microsoft's deal is about reducing the pirated copies of their software currently in China, which accounts for 90% of MS software in use. The trick is how to crack down without being shut out. MS has given the Windows source code to the Chinese gov't and has produced a "lite" version of Windows for the Asian market and reduced prices for going legit, all in hopes of avoiding a shutout. As China works toward IP compliance with the WTO a lot of Windows users will either need to pay up or switch. As an indicator, the largest bank in China will be running Linux. I think it's kind of fun watching MS work their asses off to stay in the fight.

|6.23.05 @ 12:28PM|#

David,

Fair enough. I assume that all companies are subject to these rules, as it would be pretty pointless otherwise. Don't say freedom on MS blog, but say whatever you want on other blogs?

If this is not the case then I can see your point and concern.