Competition sucks. Companies spend more time copying features or defending ones as well as edging ahead of competitors instead of spending more time innovating.
So what exactly drives innovation? Pure love of inventing? I don't think that is the case for the most part.
Case and point video calling was around back around the 1970's all thanks to the monopolistic MaBell. They had hundreds of IP's and tech that could've been brought to the market sooner if the government had at broken them up.
Specious argument. Video calling requires two items: vehicle of communications and then the end point devices. Controlling both didn't guarantee anything of quality. You may recall typical modems back when were said to never be able to get beyond a certain "speed" yet, competition by makers started getting us into both proprietary compression schemes and also pushing new ansi standards.
Another example is cable providers and "franchises" which were meant to prevent monopolies and have severely hurt the state of broadband in the US while places like Singapore has 1Gbps internet. Really? The US invented the Internet and we are so far behind.
Two topics here and neither fully addressed. Cable franchises are in nature monopolies as only one cable provider per a "zone" and thus cable as a vehicle is a monopoly in that area. You rarely see areas where more than one cable provider exists. In turn, cable providers didn't have to compete and could set whatever price they wanted. Only when other vehicles entered the mix, then prices became a bit more flexible (satellite dishes etc.). As for Singapore, I am happy for their services but it doesn't suggest OUR government would be a good source to offer it. After all, our government on any large scale project not only takes longer, does it rather mediocre but massive cost over runs that we as tax payers pay. What government might do is pass FFC rulings and more as to minimum quality of service but nothing more. BTW, would you really trust the gov't to run a data sensitive service given their record of abuse of personal info?
Cell phone companies are yet another example. Prices are higher because of costs associated with competing. Costs such as marketing, trying new tech that may or may not be supported by others, etc.. If we had one or two mobile providers with gov oversight on pricing they could expand quicker advertise less and get back to innovating as well.
Don't agree. Costs are associate with putting up "points" (towers etc.) for access. Where the gov't might have intervened is calling for a safety and minimal quality ISO or ANSI standard. Not all transceivers were created equal. Government oversight in pricing does have its place if monopolistic practices are occurring. It gets complicated when there are multiple providers on what the function of gov't intervention should be. I'll refer to my comments above.
Tech companies are also a huge pain as they are currently. Look at it like the console market. Apps like games have to be made for each platform. For an app to truly shine it needs to be native typically to make the most use out of each platform. Instead many developers use hybrid dev platforms that will spit out code for each platform as a one size fits most. This hurts the end user as it doesn't take full advantage of native API's. Look at gaming on consoles:sometimes a game will work flawlessly on PS4 but horribly on XBOX. Sometimes one platform gets an update weeks before the other. Sometimes a platform doesn't even get a game and etc...
Very peculiar myopic line of reasoning here. I'll just start with games. Who makes the games and are all games equal on requirements. Answer as we both know is NO. Then again I should also mention that there are competition among game makers. I guess you don't want that either. You know, the same competition that has driven prices down and quality has gone up. As you pointed out, games are ideal on player that engage the native requirements of the game. If a great game required something outside of a single console offering you are screwed. I guess for each new game (with your monopoly oriented thinking) we would have to buy a brand new console to make it work. I rather have a mild hit on the quality so it does play on the console I have. As for programming, thank monopolistic Microsoft for not only ramming top-down structure but creating bloatware by inefficient use of compilers and then some (topic for another thread). We can agree that cross-platform compiling isn't always a good thing nor hybrid as you call it software. You can thank the game making companies for that as well. If there was only one maker of consoles, again we would see longer times between "innovation" because the money model is suck up as much money until no more then do it all over again with a newer model.
Oh and that's not even touching on incompatible technologies. Your console controller may or may not work with another platform. Your Bluetooth headset may or may not work with a console. Your phone may or may not work with this device or that service.
But wait - you mentioned a game should run natively. What if the console you have runs your game superbly but is insufficient for a new "innovation" of technology behind another game? Your argument falls way short here. The reality is that not all games are the same or their "native" requirements. Because gaming is not a "needed" service (like phone communications), there are no standards other than what certain orgs the makers belong to agree upon. Perhaps you should start a campaign to create some standards (seriously).
Competition sucks. Everyone spends too much time looking over their back and defending or copying and less time innovating. Prices are higher than ever due to competition and marketing (and R&D) all to get back old customers or win new ones.
I can't find any proof that innovation is the mere product of someone wanting to be innovative. Often there is more involved. If there was no competition, could you prove that innovation would happen and at a pace that is of value. - Answer: no. Innovation isn't always there for creative minds to express themselves.
Competition and old patent laws and greed is why I have to choose a console if I want hardcore gaming and hope every game I want comes to that console and received the support it deserves.
Competition is why for over 20 years our phones didn't work well with our other devices or gadgets.
Competition is why prices are higher than ever.
We can agree that there is room for improvement with respect to limiting the dollars a gamer has to spend to play all the games he/she wants to play. However, monopolistic or non-competitive models of economy doesn't guarantee any improvement and most likely the opposite.
1) Competition created a variety of options and choices for the consumer. It also created as a by product some schisms where some products didn't play well with others. This is more a challenge of agreed standards. We see that Apple uses OSX and Microsoft uses Windows and separate file systems. Should they both be forced to switch to just one OS and one file system? Btw, the gov't intruded in enough to stop Microsoft from giving away hardware and software to the general public to stop them from wiping Apple out entirely. In fact, MS gave Apple money and bought Apple stock. That is corporate business at its best and worst.
2) The entire topic of phone service and cell phone service is far more complicated than you might think. What devices and gadgets are you speaking about and what was the real failure point for them with phones?
3) Competition doesn't drive prices higher. Certain "services" might be forced to use standards as related to safety or minimum quality. If you look at the price of a cell phone, it is, for the cost of developing the technology a real steal. Competition between makers has kept the prices down not up. Both Playstation and XBox are positioned price-wise by market (how much are people willing to spend) and those devices are front ends to services that both makers charge for at some level for profit. You cannot find any proof that competition has made prices escalate. Each new game requires some sort of resources that often translates to changes in hardware. Most people know that technology is usually way ahead of software. S
So in short, go back to your game makers and make them all one company. Make them come out with a standard. - Even if the standard turns out to hamstring a developer/innovator with newer ways to create code and programs. After all, everything you said is about games and your desire to knock out competition should start at the source - game makers.
I could have googled anti competition articles and posted as there are some truly in depth articles explaining the true cost of competition but for a forum post this may suffice.
What competition has brought us is some new underlying tech however I'd even debate that per my video calling reference from the 70's companies were truly innovating when there was no other distractions. Prices were cheaper (if all of America was under one company they'd have funding for practically everything).
Also I look at what some local governments have done by becoming their own ISP. In a list of places they offer 1Gps service for under $100 all because they took things into their own hands and put the majority of the MRC back into the network.
Sorry for long winded article. Just google articles explaining why competition has hurt us, especially in tech. Also every time u hear about a patent infringement or troll law suit that's competition.
And lastly I do pull for Apple. As someone who took computer science and did so with all Microsoft computers and tech I've actually come to look at Apple as being way more forward thinking and in a way more open then the first major dominant tech company and in hind sight Microsoft and even google wouldn't be what they are today without apple's innovations.
