i think that the subtlety here is in the line:

Wow, this is how it works.

which strongly proves that Lars has no idea what he's being such a strong opponent of.

please list all of your spectacular accomplishments

shareholders seem to forget the risk that they've decided to take to share in the prosperity or ruin of a company.

if you don't like what they're doing with your shareholder money, simply sell your stock, get your money back, and stop complaining.

what's not fair competition? apple's selling computers+osx to compete against dell+hp+lenovo+whomever+microsoft

with apple gone, the only player in the consumer PC market would be windows.

linux still isn't there as an option (though it's getting there slowly slowly)

tell that to the recording industry

what do you think all those built for Vista stickers are all about?

and MS doesn't make computers.

read up on history. apple's clone experiment back in the 90's cannibalized sales and almost killed the company.

if they did that, apple would need to spin off the itunes music store in order to avoid a conflict of interest and anti-trust issues

that's like saying a home builder will sell you a "Starter Edition" house that, once you open the door (he threw the door in as a bonus!), find out the house is basically a shell on top of the foundation.. no fixtures, cabinets, flooring, drywalls, just framing.

And if you just use mostly F/OSS, getting basic would probably annoy the hell out of you.

in the case of XP Home, the only way to add features you want is to buy XP Pro.

If an OS requires that you hack and chop stuff off to make it run faster, then maybe the OS needs to be written better.

ya, you might accidentally shoot yourself in the foot.

Except when Customers X,Y,Z has no clue what the difference is between the products and decides just not to buy and to stick with what came with their computer.

Consumer wallets aren't a switch that can be flipped on by market theory.

and this is exactly why a room full of MBA's can only stagnate a company, and not innovate.

Market segmentation only works when doing so has benefits for the consumer, the customer demands or understands what they're getting or not getting, and it doesn't cause confusion.

Your example of GPS and stereos has nothing to do with segmentation. You're just talking about companies charging for the convenience of having something pre-installed on delivery.

The pricing tiers with Red Hat is there because not all businesses need the same thing. Businesses like to pay for only what they need.

The reason why Microsoft is being picked on for their practice of segmenting a consumer product marketed towards the general public is because the general public isn't a business.

And this is something that microsoft doesn't understand. The Mojave thing by microsoft illustrated very clearly that non-computer nerd consumers can't identify Vista. What chance is there that they'll know what to buy between the different versions of Vista/Win7? If anything else, it'll turn customers off, and they'll just stick with what they know - which just so happens to be whatever OS their computer came with.

the subtle thing to note in that quote is that he said "somebody else's CD"

well good. I'm copying a CD that I bought, whose music was licensed to me for my own personal use.

the problem is with what the stock market's evolved into.

originally, the stock market is there for people to invest in companies and to participate in its success

what the stock market is now are millions of day traders who care nothing about the company they're investing in, and are staring at stock tickers, waiting to profit off of intra-day price changes.