this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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Microsoft put themselves in this position when they started giving out Windows 10 for free. It was effective in bringing most of the market onto the new version, but it set an expectation which it now feels like they can't break, so they're also giving Windows 11 away. Now to offset that missing revenue, they have to do something to extract value from users.
I don't see how they could stop this without replacing it with something more exploitive.
I’d be happy to buy the OS too, but I want it to be a one-time payment and to quit with ads and all telemetry.
That's so old fashioned grandpa. Just give them a straw and let them sip out of your bank account like everyone else. You sound like the kind of person that lives in a house with a yard.
Seriously though, subscription models seem here to stay and they've just made for an incredibly adversarial relationship between industry and consumer.
I hate the rent-seeking economy.
This, so much. Hell I’ll pay the old prices to never see an ad or pop up.
I remember being young and thinking an OEM copies price was brutal lol.
Microsoft is the only company that charges for an operating system so frankly I don’t understand why they feel entitled to that income anyway
Google and Apple are definitely charging for that software development. In the case of Apple, it is being folded into hardware prices or used as a loss leader for pricy subscriptions / apps.
Google is also making a buck on subscriptions / apps, but instead of hardware, they’re also making money from licensing software to 3rd party Android manufacturers, and because Google gonna Google, they want that ad revenue.
And I would also argue that a lot of Linux distros make money from professional services and what not.
Most of the big boys aren’t doing the work for free
It's effectively bundled with Apple hardware (which also dramatically lowers their development costs; they don't support anything they don't ship and are perfectly willing to abandon hardware once it no longer supports the level of hardware features they feel the new OS version needs). I'm not sure it's that different.
Android is free (maybe? Do phone manufacturers pay for Google play branding?), but they make their money by having the lions share of software going through their storefront. Microsoft is never going to do that with Windows.
Back in the 90s Apple charge for OS upgrades. I saved my allowance money to get OS 8 and was super happy when I got OS X 10.2 for Christmas. Once they could reliably deliver upgrades over the Internet they stopped charging for it.
The story I always heard was that there were some weird accounting rules that were, if not codified legally, common practice at the time, that made the book keeping on free updates sketchier. But I don't know about the validity of that.
I definitely don't think "free" justifies any of Windows bullshit. I did pay for 10 (pro) for gaming several years back, but with the real emergence of proton the steam deck accelerated, I wouldn't install windows on any of my systems for free now. They're super hostile to users and are just assuming that inertia is good enough that they can get away with it.
You could say that about any product or service. “They don’t charge for a steering wheel on your car it’s bundled in.” But that’s not a useful or meaningful distinction.
The issue here is windows famously charged until very recently (and still sort of does) which distinguishes it from those that don’t charge.
But Windows is the product. Hardware is a small part of their revenue, and most of their install base is hardware that isn't theirs.
MacOS is also part of Apple's product, but they pretty much only sell higher margin premium hardware that both pays for and streamlines the OS development process.
Windows OS is not the product.
Yes, it absolutely is.
Microsoft put themselves in this position when they went against the open source movement.
It moves slowly but inexorably, and sooner or later Linux or another open source OS will take their spot on the desktop.
There is nothing free in this life..
Linux is free.
Monetarily yes, but not free of time, in fact time it's the most precious resource we have.
A one-off time 'investment' of switching to Linux will save you from all future cases of searching for how to wrestle with the latest Windows crapware. If you switch, you'll be in time-debt for a few months, and after that you'll be ahead - and you'll stay ahead indefinitely. You'll also have the piece of mind that you are not being spied on and monetised by your OS.
Personally I use Linux, and TBH as I value my free time it's why I say it, if you need something that just works and don't want to mess around looking for fixing trivial errors on the internet I would suggest using windows to 95% of people, I hate windows but I must admit if it's about stability at exchange of looking ads with not tech ability definitely it's the most recommended.
Linux it's amazing but it's not for everyone.
It's like the eternal battle Apple VS Android, if you just want it to work and don't want to mess around with trivial errors definitely Apple it's the choice, you lose liberty and privacy but for most people it will work fine.(I use Android)
Your argument sounds OK, but is probably stuck a bunch of years in the past. I observe the opposite lately.
Like I want to do something trivial on windows, like move the fucking taskbar on the left side of the screen, I have spent time searching and it still does not work. At lest on Linux if something does not work you have a leg to work on and a community to help. Have you seen the windows forums when encountering an issue? It's tragic.
I just tried it out, not even knowing before your comment.
Right click taskbar, uncheck Lock all Taskbars, click and drag it to the left side. Done.
Meanwhile, when I was using my Steam Deck as a desktop, it refused to save the position of my taskbar on my main monitor. Plus, when I did move it across each time I booted up, it would leave behind half the buttons because they're considered separate entities. Thank god for oh almighty user customization - making it incredibly hard to do something simple.
Are you on windows 11?
No, this is on 10. Perhaps they’ve made it harder there.
Well, not harder. Impossible. That's my gripe.
My subjective opinion: Comparing Linux v Windows to iOS v Android is a terrible analogy. Both mobile OS work fine and have little differences.
I think this overstates the "you must futz with it" of both Android and the common Linux desktop. Broadly speaking, both are pretty much fine out of the box for most people and the stuff they are likely to want to do to Windows is similarly easy to do with a likely default desktop environment (I'd say KDE more likely than Gnome, since Gnome opts to try not let you do a lot of stuff and demands you have to do "weird stuff" for some customizations). You don't have to play with "expert tiling-only window manager N" or go off the deep end tweaking to the Nth degree.
Same with Android, though with even less likelihood of anyone bothering to go "off script". 99% of Android users never touch adb, never do an oem unlock, never boot an aftermarket OS load.
The fact that you can, does not imply you must.