Google makes like 30 billion dollar PROFIT per year, and they pay firefox 0.5 billion per year.
Now it seems to me that 0.5 billion is the "cost of not technically being a monopoly" when they are indeed a monopoly, and it's a net win if they're pulling say 10 billion synergistic monopolistic profit from not being broken up into baby googles as a monopoly trust buster case.
I would say this is capitalism in a pure form, the kind the communists rail against, the kind where a monopoly crushes out all the benefits to the people, government corruption, etc. True "for the people" style capitalism would mean two browsers truly competing, ideally more than two (duopolies are monopolies by another name and poison our society broadly). One browser as part of an american zaibatsu, with the zaibatsu punting a little money to save face and claim competition exists - by propping up the competition financially - is absolutely a disgusting thing. To say "oh no, the thing they're propping up will no longer be propped up" is also disgusting and capitalistically twisted.
Now it seems to me that 0.5 billion is the "cost of not technically being a monopoly" when they are indeed a monopoly, and it's a net win if they're pulling say 10 billion synergistic monopolistic profit from not being broken up into baby googles as a monopoly trust buster case.
I would say this is capitalism in a pure form, the kind the communists rail against, the kind where a monopoly crushes out all the benefits to the people, government corruption, etc. True "for the people" style capitalism would mean two browsers truly competing, ideally more than two (duopolies are monopolies by another name and poison our society broadly). One browser as part of an american zaibatsu, with the zaibatsu punting a little money to save face and claim competition exists - by propping up the competition financially - is absolutely a disgusting thing. To say "oh no, the thing they're propping up will no longer be propped up" is also disgusting and capitalistically twisted.