Monopoly is a form of dictatorship. "Cornering" a market,
as it used to be termed, is strictly analogous to gaining
absolute political control of a region. Where "the media"
is involved, there are special problems. People get
uptight about the proportion of the traditional global
media that is owned by Rupert Murdoch, but it seems to me
that Gates is in, or at least could easily get into, a
similar position, and that just isn't widely recognised
because of the novel nature of the Internet. When MS
first got into networking in a big way, it quite
blatantly tried to have the Microsoft Network replace the
Internet. It failed in that, so now it's just about as
blatantly trying to take over the Internet.
I say, boycott Microsoft -- as far as you can, because
it's not very easy, if you use computers at all -- and I
wouldn't advise law breaking, but in my opinion it's more
important not to give them money, than not to use their
products, if you know what I mean. ;-)
-- Robin