I think monopoly is bad enough, but when you have businesses getting both into the content and distribution business, it allows for market abuse.

I vote to let it happen and then watch it fail. It may take a few years, but it will most certainly fail. If history is any indication, the bigger companies get the more out of touch they get with their customers and the more fragile their success becomes.

Because that's worked so well with Microsoft?

I find it hard to believe that you don't use at least something in the following list all owned by NBC.

NBC, Universal Studios, NBC Universal Television Group, NBC News, USA Network, Syfy, CNBC, MSNBC Cable TV, NBC.com, MSNBC.com, iVillage, Bravo, qubo, Telemundo Television Studios, The Weather Channel, Hulu, A&E Television Networks

All from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBC_Universal

Because AOL was easily undercut by different ISPs. Don't like AOL? Dial-in to a different server! Don't like NBComcast? Oh wait! I have no other "high speed" internet option in my area.

But if you control the entire entertainment and delivery vertical for a population that has only one choice in delivery, then there is no need to be in touch with your customer. Remember ATT? "We're the phone company, we don't have to care."

Personally, I only use one from that particular list (SciFi), and I wouldn't care too much if I lost it. Regardless, I'm still very concerned about NBC-Comcast because of the dangerous precedent it might set. If the merger went through and NBC-Comcast was able to start favoring its own content (even in a small way), you know it would only be a matter of time until Time Warner and such start making similar deals. By then, it may be too late to stop without turning the market upside-down.

Turning the market upside-down may not be a bad thing, but I'd hate to have to find out that way.

Since they play more human interest crap than events, I think many folks would be ok with missing the olympics.

I realize those pieces are cheaper, but they are pointless.

Yeah... it's like owning Park Place, Boardwalk, AND all the railroads at the same time. It sucks when it isn't you. :p

No, it's a lot worse than that. In Monopoly, when someone else owns a lot of valuable properties, at least it's another player who has the same goals you have, albeit adversarial. When your opponent makes money, although he takes it from you, it at least stays in the game and the rules don't change. Through smart play and careful management, you at least have a chance to get some of that back. There is still capital in the game. You can borrow, you can play.

When corporations own the same monopoly of say, all the railroads and both utilities, it changes the fundamental rules of the game. It doesn't just add to their holdings, it wrecks the game for everybody. They don't want to just beat you, they want to make it so that you can't ever play again. People tend to make some fundamental mistakes when thinking about corporations. They're not people. They're legal fictions with destruction of the market built into their fictional DNA. Their agenda is of a much different nature than yours or mine.

Well also there's the fact that Monopoly is... you know... a game. When someone owns Park Place, Boardwalk, and the railroads it simply "sucks when it isn't you". You were trying to do the same thing, because that's the point of the game. You're not worried about whether the railroads continue to provide good service to their customers, because that's not part of the game.

But what we're talking about here is telecommunications infrastructure and information dissemination. These are not simply entertainment services, but you're talking about companies that control portions of the Internet and the news. These are essentially vital public services that we allow private companies to perform under the belief that private companies will do a better job. We can't afford to allow them to be abused, since it could have dire consequences for the future of our society. Worse: In an era where we could realistically damage our own planet to the point of making it unlivable for ourselves, abusing telecommunications infrastructure and information dissemination could threaten the existence of our species.

Whereas Monopoly is a game.

Yes. The problem there is, they're not *exactly* flat-out wrong. A real free market is not necessarily absolutely "free", basically a situation where a consumer has real valid choices between multiple competing vendors. Very often, giving consumers real choice allows for greater economic efficiency than having any kind of central authority make economic choices for everyone.

There are a couple problems, though. First, very often, the vendors will seek to limit the choices of the consumers, thereby subverting the supposed "free-market forces". This is most obvious in cases where a monopoly or cartel is able to arbitrarily set prices for necessary goods, but it happens in other more subtle ways.

Second, though the "free market" is often more efficient, there may be cases where "efficiency" is not the chief concern. It can be "more efficient" to ignore safety standards in manufacturing. It can be "more efficient" for the police to simply arrest and jail whoever they think is guilty, without need of evidence or a trial.

I like free markets, but I'm also in favor of good government. The "free market" is a method we use to organize ourselves in order to produce cheap stuff, but "government" is a method we use to organize ourselves to ensure our lives have safety and justice.