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Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

theguardian.com

11–20 of 207 posts

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#11

Aside from the other arguments in the article: "The chair of the CMA, its chief executive and the rest of the board are appointed by the business secretary of the elected government" if I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter. AFAIK most US…

Direct democracy is not a good idea, unfortunately.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#12

Aside from the other arguments in the article: "The chair of the CMA, its chief executive and the rest of the board are appointed by the business secretary of the elected government" if I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter. AFAIK most US…

Direct democracy is not a good idea, unfortunately.

Yeah, implicit in his complaint is that it is the ideal and would somehow "fix" this ruling. I wish the article confronted that assumption directly instead of attempting to discredit his complaint.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#13
Microsoft basically said that the UK is a bad place to do businesses because they didn't got what they wanted. An extremely entitled and childish comment coming from someone that should know better.

Microsoft is showing its most unprofessional and belligerent face going back to the worst times of the company. Remember the FUDs about Linux, the lies about DR-DOS, ... Microsoft is back and needs to be corrected.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#14

Aside from the other arguments in the article: "The chair of the CMA, its chief executive and the rest of the board are appointed by the business secretary of the elected government" if I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter. AFAIK most US…

> not only unelected but unaccountable

Well direct democracy for everything is a consistent position but I doubt that Microsoft unironically thinks that all appointed government posts are unaccountable.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#15
What I find interesting is MS has until July to close this deal but the FTC case only starts in august. Also the FTC is also suing to prevent this case from closing… if two of your biggest markets are trying to stop you from closing your deal, maybe just stop.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#16
post #13

Microsoft basically said that the UK is a bad place to do businesses because they didn't got what they wanted. An extremely entitled and childish comment coming from someone that should know better. Microsoft is showing its most unprofessional and belligerent face going back to the worst times of the company. Remember the FUDs about Linux, the lies about DR-DOS, ... Microsoft is back and needs to be corrected.

Brad Smith is definitely part of the old guard. Joined in 1993.

His remarks the other day are going to age terribly. He's basically everything Ballmer was but as a lawyer.

But, we should expect more of this if mega corporations are allowed to continue growing their market caps beyond the GDP of G7 nation states.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#17
post #3

Aside from the other arguments in the article: "The chair of the CMA, its chief executive and the rest of the board are appointed by the business secretary of the elected government" if I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter. AFAIK most US…

what would you propose as an alternative?

Not the parent. But maybe the courts are an alternative model for making these kind of decisions. Let the different parties make a case and then have an independent judge decide it as a question of law.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#18
I don't mind the complaint about CMA being undemocratic because it's a council of unelected bureaucrats, it's just trash-talk from someone that didn't get what they wanted; to be expected.

IMO the reason why this decision is really dumb is because the reason given was cloud gaming.

I think that people are missing this.

This isn't a market. Almost nobody plays on cloud gaming platforms, like Stadia which recently closed down, or similar.

The idea of blocking a deal because maybe this technology will become much more popular one day and maybe Microsoft will be the success is IMO dumb. It's just a dumb argument.

Concerns about CoD and PlayStation at least make sense, but not given here.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#19

Aside from the other arguments in the article: "The chair of the CMA, its chief executive and the rest of the board are appointed by the business secretary of the elected government" if I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter. AFAIK most US…

The UK elects a parliament, and parliament appoints a government. So there's an extra layer.

Re: Ignore Microsoft’s whines about the Activision takeover. The CMA did its job

#20

I don't mind the complaint about CMA being undemocratic because it's a council of unelected bureaucrats, it's just trash-talk from someone that didn't get what they wanted; to be expected. IMO the reason why this decision is really dumb is because the reason given was cloud gaming. I think that people are missing this. This isn't a market. Almost nobody plays on cloud gaming platforms, like Stadia which recently clos…

Does "cloud gaming" encompass things like Xbox Game Pass though? Subscription model with downloadable access to all games definitely feels cloudy to me.
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