[thelist] AOL/netscape was:Netscape 6 loads page twice

[Aylard JA (James)]

> Using a dominant market position to force a company to use your product 
> isn't equitable.(on a side note, its been a long time since we've had a 
> nice windows/os/linux/aol discussion, i'm happy :)  Further, AOL already 
> had their icon on the windows desktop before this all started. MS used 
> their market dominance to say to AOL, "Listen, either you make IE the 
> default browser for your 15 mil. users, or we'll make sure any future 
> customers never even hear about AOL."

	Sorry, Dan, I just don't buy it. First, AOL has no right to put its
icon on the Windows desktop; it has to pay for the privilege with some form
of exchange, whether it be in money or in a browser agreement. Secondly, AOL
is utterly impossible to avoid. In the old days, they cluster-bombed
diskettes all over the place, and today it's CDs. They were never in a
position to shrivel up and die because their icon wasn't on the Windows
desktop -- and even if they had been, so what? That's business.
Alternatively, MSN has never done terribly well as an online service,
despite (IIRC) a monopoly position on the original Windows 95 desktop.

James Aylard