What makes Microsoft a monopoly?
It is actually much, much simpler. In a nutshell: It’s that their entire product line rests upon state enforcement of legal monopolies of duplication called “copyrights” (that’s what a copyright is: a monopoly on the duplication of an intangible such as software). And the most outrageous thing is that they outsource their costs of enforcement to you, the taxpayer. Let’s go with an example here. Imagine you want to enter the potato business. You buy one potato, and you plant it. You invest time and energy of your own into multiplying said potato and making a huge-ass farm, and when time comes for harvest, you can pick them up and sell them in direct competition with the guy who sold you the first potato. Now imagine you wanted to sell Windows instead of potatoes: you buy a copy of Windows, duplicate it N times (certainly a cheaper investment, but an investment in time and money nonetheless), and start selling it. Exactly like in the potato example above. What happens here is that armed
