The simple answer is follow the money. Microsoft makes their money selling software. Google makes theirs selling Internet advertising. Apple makes theirs selling both hardware and software as an integral package. Google provides a lot of software free as an attraction to be able to track where you go on the Internet to make their advertising more effective. Microsoft and Apple protect their software because thats where their income comes from.
It started in the late seventies out of interest in computers as a hobby. The key to Microsoft and Apple's success was having the vision to see where it was headed. The same is true with Google and the Internet. When the rest of us were facinated with being to send email and distribute information over telephone wires, Google had the vision to see it as a way to make money by selling advertising.
All of them are publicly owned companies except Facebook. You can own part by buying their stock. Facebook is a social networking site that sells advertising like Google.
Many people see Microsoft as a monopoly for good reason considering their market share. The other side of the coin is that consumers also benefit from standardization. If everybody is using different systems that means what one person sends another, they may not be able to use because of incompatability.
In my view the side all of us should be on is to maximize competition within a framework of standards for file formats and find a fair and equitable balance for the right to privacy in using computers online. The price we pay for much of the free stuff provided by companies like Google is providing them with information that allows them to make money advertising just like the free shows you watch on television.
Perfect and concise answer and very helpful. Are there any companies or large organizations out there not trying to make money, just trying to help humanity?
What about wikimedia corporation and creative commons.org? Are these entities out to make money as well?
As I understand it, Wikopedia is financed by donations and most of the sites with an .org extension are non-profit. There are a number of software products made by cooperative efforts and distributed free like SpyBot, Apache Server etc. but even with people contributing their time, there are costs for hardware, facilities and administration that require a money source from somewhere.
