<(1)I would be fascinated to see the rationale for assuming that wonderful operating systems and software will come out of the woodwork once Microsoft is destroyed. Who will create them? Where are all these geniuses now? (2)I paid about $250 for a clean install of Windows 2000. Is this too high? How much do you think an operating system should cost? (3)If Microsoft is overcharging for software, why is it so hard for competitors to underprice them? (4)Are you using a Mac? Linux? If you are, how is that possible under this horrible monopoly? If you are not, why not? Did Bill Gates come to your house with enforcement agents to make you buy Microsoft? Or maybe Microsoft just does the job better?

This paragraph demonstrates why you have no grasp of neoclassical free market economics with regard to monopolies. 1. Microsoft would not be "destroyed" by an antitrust legal action; It would be broken into smaller segments. Ma Bell wasn't destroyed; it was broken up, after which the baby bells began offering competitive prices and a wide new range of phone services and technological innovations. 2. Yes $250 is too high for a clean install of an operating system. Furthermore, Windows would be a much better product if Microsoft was not a monopoly. Many people forget that monopolies not only cause higher prices but they also cause poorer quality. 3. Because when a company has monopoly control they have leverage to drive competitors out of the market. Look at what microsoft did to netscape. 4. I'm free to use a couple of other operating systems but that is not the definition of a monoploy. Generally if a company owns 50%+ of a market they can start exercising monopoly control, i.e., crushing competition and then stiffing the consumer.

Antitrust laws have nothing to do with your paranoid theories about government power grabs. They are a mainstay of neoclassical economics, which most libertarians and conservatives swear by, to preserve competition and thus the integrity of the free market system.