[Empeg-forsale] Re: For Sale: 96GB Empeg Mark2 Smoke Lens w/ Tuner Mod

[wfaulk@empegbbs-noreply.merlins.org]

When I say ``free'' in this context, I actually mean totally without charge.   And, more specifically, it's an issue of losing money on the transaction.  If a company can underprice and still make money on it, that's just good business.  The thing is that Gateway is selling those services.  They're just hiding the charges in the cost of the rest of the product and using the word ``free'' as a marketing gimmick.

Now, there is another illegal monopolistic practice known as ```bundling'' or ``tying''.  This is where a company sells a monopolized product only under the condition that the customer also buy another non-monopolized product.  (This is what Microsoft was accused of by integrating IE with Windows.)  That doesn't apply in your Gateway case because there's no monopoly involved anywhere.  But if Gateway had a monopoly on peecees, then it could be considered as such.