- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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nothing new. here in brazil many manufacturers, dell included, would ship laptops with linux and then people would shove a pirated windows copy on it.
The price difference does make sense, it’s the cost to cover therapy for the employee that was forced to preinstall Windows on a computer for the thousandth time
SteamOS is next.
Currently in France No OS is -€60 and with Fedora or Ubuntu it’s -€30
Don’t ask. Different markets, pricing irrelevant to actual costs
in brazil, we used to have a law forcing this to be a thing. back in the laptop days, it used to be reasonably common for people to buy one without with linux, and pirate windows later to save money. or because it was plain cheaper.
it turns out brazil fomented a big userbase for linux for a while there. free market my ass, microsoft is an oligopoly. if this ever gets widespread i’m pretty sure adoption will grow for the simple fact people will at least get to fucking try it. microsoft wouldnt take it kindly though.
Used to have? Not anymore?
i wanted to say we still do but im not sure. its been a while since i shopped for laptops.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Bolsonaro had gotten pocketed a kickback from MS to quietly remove that law’s teeth.
i checked the brazilian dell website and they offer ubuntu as a choice. i’m not sure if they are doing it by their own choice or by force of law though.
bolsonaro gutting this law wouldnt surprise me, but i don’t see it as relevant enough (at least right now) for them to even bother glossing over this tbh.
oligopoly
That’s a way to misspell monopoly, alright.
An oligopoly is a market in which pricing control lies in the hands of a few sellers. As a result of their significant market power, firms in oligopolistic markets can influence prices through manipulating the supply function.
I’m considering Macs and Chromebooks to be competitors. Maybe they aren’t since those systems are very locked down, but eh, still shitty and not much practical difference IMO.
Fair. Although, I consider Microsoft’s market “Most laptops” since Apple kind of does its own thing and Chromebooks are ultra-low end laptops. Thus Microsoft gets ~95% of the market for themselves.
Personally, I’d say that’s a clear case of monopoly since MS controls this entire segment of “non-Apple, non-ultra low power laptop, PCs”, but you’re right - there are other players. The thing is, they have relatively tiny niches in which they thrive and in fact pose no threat to the monopolist.
But I now I see how you see it as an oligopoly, which is quite valid.
Wow, I didn’t realize the windows tax was that high. I thought the bulk OEM licensing was significantly cheaper than the retail price.
I thought it was as much as the $10-$20 keys from key resellers.
Finally!
It’s HAPPENING!
Windows is free for anyone to use indefinitely… If you’re OK with a persistent watermark.
Why even add a premium to the laptop? Let the user decide to use windows as-is, pay a license, or switch to Linux. 🤭
In practice. Technically, were M$ to go sue users left and right (or send those ISP-style “gotcha”, now pay up) emails.
Luckiy, M$ knows well enough that 90% of that userbase wouldn’t have too many qualms jumping ship if they got slapped with a huge fine, so M$ lets them be.
They value the high userbase more than a quick payout (and rightly so). However, there’s no guarantee that can’t change overnight (just look at Unity and before that, Adobe).
