Sometimes companies will make more money by refusing to give consumers what they want. Collusion is also extremely profitable. A competitor that isn't interested in playing along can be bought out, but once shareholders get involved they're going to insist on screwing over their customers just like everyone else does anyway because they'd be leaving a huge pile of cash on the table otherwise and short term profits are all shareholders care about.
reply"by refusing to give consumers what they want." in practice consumers don't really want that, that much. The companies do similar things due to the similar ways consumers react to them. That's the point of this rely chain.
replyThere are lots of things consumers want. They'd love a cell phone that didn't spy on them, they want a smart TV that isn't full of ads, they want an ink jet printer that doesn't refuse to print when there's still ink available. These aren't huge asks but because subjecting customers to them make companies money it's difficult, if not impossible to avoid.
replyWhat makes you think a competitor that "plays fair" can compete with a competitor that takes advantage of the system and extracts as much value as they can?
replyThat argument doesn't really hold when the barriers of entry are so high. Believing that one of the biggest tech firms in the world is doing something undesirable and having a better idea that many people would in fact pay for is not the same as having the resources to become a unicorn with a huge global customer base that can practically implement that idea.
replyPlus, specifically for Microsoft, competing doesn't mean an alternative to Windows. It means an alternative to the entire enterprise stack, especially Office & M365.
replyGoogle hasn't enticed the big entrenched MS orgs to move over to Workspace, so if Google can't how can a smaller startup ever hope to accomplish that in the face of these behemoths that can just outlast them in a race to the bottom until they are insolvent or get bought by said behemoths?
Microsoft doesn't just sell an OS, or some services, they sell "IT in a box"