Roedy Green wrote:
> 1. it was a threat to destroy a business -- e.g vandalise tens of
> thousands of dollars of property. For all practical purpose they
> threatened to steal my business. It would be roughly the same dollar
> value as threatening to burn down a large house.
No, it was a threat to stop providing you with a business by allowing
you to resell their products.
> 2. it was a threat to force me to commit a criminal act -- namely
> extract money from people and hand it to Microsoft and give those
> people nothing of value in return. That in principle is no different
> from demanding I go out an night and rob people and give MS the
> proceeds. The selected victims were those who expressed a contempt
> for MS products by refusing to buy or even have any need for them.
If you didn't think Windows was worth paying for, don't sell it. An
wholesale agreement that prohibits you from selling competing products is
not at all unusual.
> 3. What MS did was theft, namely taking money from people and giving
> them nothing of value in return against their will.
Then don't agree to it. All you had to do was say no. All you would have
lost was the ability to do business *with* *Microsoft*.
> What if MS had simply made the threat without being specific about how
> they were going to carry it off? Would you consider MS so innocent
> then?
If it could have been in any way taken as a threat to use force, lie to
others about your company, file a lawsuit knowing it had no merit, or
anything of the like, then I would not consider MS innocent at all. To my
mind, that is where the line is drawn.
But in this case, all it seems that Microsoft threatened to do was to
prohibit you from doing business with them. And all they wanted in exchange
was more of what being able to sell their products was actually worth to
you.
The point here is that Microsoft was offering you something of
tremendous value to you. And they, in return, asked for a lot of money from
you. It's really this simple -- is the money they want from you more or less
than the value? If yes, you have no right to complain. If no, why ever did
you agree?
DS
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