Scott Wickstein pushes two of my hot buttons at once, supporting both Telstra privatisation and Windoze. The problem with Scott’s argument is that, in both cases, he thinks there’s a choice between competition and monopoly. In reality, Telstra is and will remain a monopoly for all practical purposes. The real choice is between
(i) a publicly-owned monopoly, limited to the natural monopoly component of the business
(ii) a privately-owned (ultimately foreign-owned) monopoly extending from telecoms into all kinds of media (eg TV and Internet)
As regards operating systems, the forces pushing for monopoly (compatibility/network externalities) are huge. Only this can explain why a lame OS like MS-DOS ruled the roost for more than a decade, before being succeeded by an imitation (Windows 3.1/95) of an alternative that had been available all along. And only the brilliance of MacOS (plus Bill Gates’ fear of antitrust) can explain why we have a 95 per cent monopoly instead of 100 per cent.