Readers should also take into consideration that Microsoft is a partner with NBC, which is owned by General Electric, in an all-news cable channel, MSNBC, which competes with CNN, which is owned by AOL Time Warner. What's more, the editor in chief of , the cable channel's affiliated website, is my mother's brother's wife's aunt's husband's nephew, which obviously makes it difficult for me to evaluate objectively the merits of a merger between a company (AOL) that recently bought the company (Netscape) that makes the Internet browser that competes with the browser of the company that employs me, and a company (Time Warner) that owns a studio (Warner Bros.) that made the movie Wild Wild West, which I saw on an airplane and which is unforgivable….
Look: this very article you are reading is in a magazine published by a company that owns a cable channel that competes with another cable channel that is half owned by a company (Dow Jones) that also half owns a magazine (SmartMoney) that competes with another magazine (MONEY) owned by the company that publishes this magazine, and half owned by a company (GE) that also half owns a cable channel (MSNBC) that is half owned by the employer of the author of this article, whose CEO (GE's, that is) nevertheless often appears on the cover of the magazine (FORTUNE) that competes with the magazine (SmartMoney) co-owned by the company that also co-owns CNBC with GE.
Six Degrees of America Online [1]
And my Mom once went to her father's sister's son's ex-wife's husband's 50th birthday party. In another state no less.
Seriously, while the article itself is an amusing dislosure, it does point out what to me is a disturbing trend—forget a one world corporation, how about a one-world owner! Another trend I can see happening is the illegality of actually owning anything. Do you own your car? Most likely, you're making payments on it and by the time you pay it off, you get another one. Your home? Renting, or mortgaged (which means the bank technically owns it until you pay off the note). Movies? Games? Software? If Microsoft has its way, you'll subscribe to the next edition of Microsoft Word; you won't actually own a copy.
[1] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,37620,00.html