> In the EU, monopoly is gauged by how much choice and diversity is lost, even in the face of free product. I am very much aligned with the EU view of monopoly.
Interestingly the US used to have the EU viewpoint as well, until the 1970s. Robert Bork was one of the main people behind that.
For those interested in a deeper look at Antitrust in America, Planet Money had a great three part series on the topic [1].
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/20/704426033/anti...
Users of technical software (I.e. developers, especially for websites) have never had it better.
IMHO, price is one thing you look at as a customer. If the value you derive is greater than what you pay for it you should definitely pay the price for the product.
people don’t use vscode because it’s free. they use it because it’s great.
The convenient to download and install on any machine at any given time without having to deal with payment removes friction and it's a huge thing.
And I have no problem paying for an IDE, but I stopped because VSCode was as good, if not better, than any paid option out there for my uses.
In the EU, monopoly is gauged by how much choice and diversity is lost, even in the face of free product. I am very much aligned with the EU view of monopoly.
Dumping free services is great (temporarily) for the user, but ultimately harms them in that it starves out competition that can't afford such dumping.
*edit, words.