Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
Stallman has done a great deal of good,
but if you ask me, he's a bit of a crank in several areas.
His monklike fervor -- and belief that everyone should share that fervor -- has not escaped notice. 
And I think he has an unhealthy obsession with Amazon,
in addition to buying into the BPH propaganda a little too much for someone with his reputation for militant free-thinking.  |
I added a tad bit of whitespace in the above quote.
In a society that ever increasingly depends on technology, he has certainly brought to light factors that need(ed) attention.
And I can agree that his (apparent) overall concerns and objectives will end up judged in the 'good' column.
A bit of a crank?
I think my own views on his methods and behavior would have to be written in much stronger terms than you used above.
I'll just assume your being tactful in a public forum.
RMS is certainly a case where the message and the messenger need to be considered separately.
His attitude towards Amazon is certainly a feature of the "messenger" not part of the message.
Anyone following that page link I gave, should try this:
Find the word Amazon, see if a generalization can be substituted.
I think anyone that tries that, can see that what he characterizes as "Amazon" is true in general.
His message would be stronger if he had done that himself.
Here is a case of a preacher who needs to hire a good copy editor.
With his focus on "Amazon" he seems to have missed this more general trend of forming vertical monopolies by all the participants in the electronic publishing industry.
As others have pointed out, this is not something unique to Amazon, although due to their industry position, they do make an obvious (shorthand) target for anyone's comments.
In my early post, the one that lent to the title of this thread, I pointed out that vertical monopolies are not "in themselves" considered "bad", that only when they can be shown to be anti-competitive do they fall into the "bad" column.
The world has survived the Henry Fords and J. P. Morgans, and I still think it will survive the Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos.
Certainly in a changed form, but survive just the same.
= = = =
Background note:
Henry Ford is an often used example.
He (tried) to own everything from the land the iron ore was mined from to the making of the window glass for his automobiles. He came pretty close to doing it (and his company still does).
J. P. Morgan gets mentioned because his business practices lead to much of our anti-trust laws.
The J. P. Morgan/Chase bank is still a major player in the world's finance.
Jeff Brazos will probably someday be seen as the person who tested how far the concept of a vertical monopoly could be pushed within the electronic publishing industry before being trimmed back by public outrage.