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I don’t get all this commotion between the EU and Microsoft. Yes, they have a monopoly in the desktop market. But bundling Windows frickin’ Media Player with the OS is not going to affect that.

Asking any desktop environment manufacturer not to supply its product with a media player is moronic. As a consequence, users will complain that Windows doesn’t work out of the box. And you can hardly ask a company that produces its own media player to supply its desktop environment with a third party’s.

Moreover, let’s look at the competition.

Apple has been polluting computers with iTunes for years. If anyone has a monopoly on media players, it’s them. Apple is the new Microsoft, but, apparently, their cool factor allows them to get away with it. Ridiculous. Steve Jobs is more of a capitalist than Bill Gates has ever been.

Your average Linux desktop, on the other hand, comes with a myriad of media players. I’m not opposed to choice, but, as a lot of people have already pointed out, having to choose is not exactly better. People are overwhelmed by the vast amount of media players. And just because they’re not installed by default, it doesn’t mean you don’t have the same choice on Windows—in fact, the number of media players for Windows is probably a multiple of that for Linux.

And I don’t even like Windows Media Player. I loathe it as much as iTunes and use foobar2000. But that doesn’t mean your average user shouldn’t be able to install Windows and just double-click a media file to freaking play it. If he wants to use a different media player, he bloody well can.

The exact same thing applies to web browsers. Yes, Internet Explorer has a huge monopoly. Yes, it sucks. Yes, I support Mozilla Firefox. But you can’t ask Microsoft to bundle a third-party browser with their own OS. If they have the resources to produce a solution that covers all bases, even if it’s subpar, then by all means, let people use it. Yes, it’s capitalism at work, but it also makes people’s lives a whole lot easier. Even with the malware and whatnot. It’s not like any of the alternatives are flawless.

Just my two cents.