Well, you don't really know that, do you? Perhaps another monopolist would have come along. Perhaps he would have been in the style of Steve Jobs, who is not at all known for philanthropy.
> Perhaps another monopolist would have come along.
There were certainly plenty of people who would have liked to dominated software the way Gates did. So, I agree, one of them might have succeeded. And if they did, the outcome would have been about that same as it was with Gates' dominance. In other words, we'd probably have been no worse off.
Could the alternative monopolist have been Steve Jobs? It's possible, though I think it's unlikely. Jobs' products have tended to be quirky (e.g. the original Mac had no expansion slot), with an NIH-flavour (e.g. Apple are about the only people who use Objective C), more expensive than the competition, and often locked-down (e.g. the iPhone will only run apps approved by Apple); all attributes that make mass adoption less likely. And Apple itself has often have the flavour of a religious cult about it.
This is not to denigrate Jobs: he's clearly a brilliant man, and Apple have clearly made some brilliant products. As opposed to Microsoft's products which tend towards the mediocre: they always work (sort-of) but are rarely inspiring.
So if there was an alternate monopolist, and it was Jobs, I think software technology would have progressed faster than it actually did.
Maybe Jobs isn't known for philanthopy, but that's irrelevant, since the original assertion was "the magnitude of the impact Billy has had in their life", and my life (and most HN readers' lives) has been changed more by technological advances in computing than by Gates' philanthopy.
All quite debatable. Excel, for example, is one of the single best pieces of software I've ever used. As another example, I find Itunes clunky and hard to use.
Don't get me wrong, I still hate Bill Gates the monopolist. What I don't like is the knee-jerk reaction that anything he or Microsoft does is evil, and anything that Apple/Google/etc. does is good. We can still learn from him as a businessman, and we can also admire his philanthropic contributions.
> Excel, for example, is one of the single best pieces of software I've ever used.
Let's consider Excel. It's a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets were invented by Dan Bricklin, and since VisiCalc, many have been written. It's therefore clear that without Bill Gates, spreadsheets would still exist -- no doubt you'd be describing another one as the best software you're ever used.
> What I don't like is the knee-jerk reaction that anything he or Microsoft does is evil, and anything that Apple/Google/etc. does is good.
Well don't complain about it to me, I'm not asserting either of these!
> We can still learn from him as a businessman
Indeed so. The way he pulled the wool over IBM's eyes and stole control of the desktop from under their noses was masterpiece of business strategy.
Leave your biases at the door, please.