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Comment by thriftwy | Hacker News Reader

> People hated Windows 8... and nobody ever left any of these because of those changes

How would you "leave" a product that you have already paid money for? They'll just avoid buying stuff like that in the future. Leaving is for services.

Windows 8 is an utter disaster. I'm pretty sure that explosive Macbook growth at the time was fueled by this (and Vista). Today, Windows is for miserable people who can't afford anything better. This is understood by consumers. This is also understood by hardware makers. It takes two strikes to ruin product's reputation.

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> Today, Windows is for miserable people who can't afford anything better. This is understood by consumers. This is also understood by hardware makers.

Please, take a look outside of the SV/US bubble. Windows currently has a nearly 90% market share [1], is available to a very wide spectrum of devices. This is not because of "miserable people who can't afford anything better", but due to conscious efforts by Microsoft to make their product accesible. And due to marketing as well

[1]https://netmarketshare.com

I'm sorry for you to hear, but there's more poor and miserable people in the world than affluent ones.

Doesn't make anything that I have said less valid.

I just want to see Windows crowd admit that they left their audience down, and etch that on the back of their eyelids. Because right now they're in quantum entalgnement state, where they simultaneously admit it, but then again "but maybe it wasn't so bad after all, we got to keep most of market share".

You let my mom down, for god's sake.

Just stop. Admit and never forget. It was exactly as bad as you fear to remember and then some.

I use Windows, OSX, Linux and BSD. And my main OS is Windows. Sorry that you don't like the OS. Maybe you never learned the APIs or read some of the public code. The windows kernel isn't bad by any means. And its userspace utilities are pretty damn good.

> Today, Windows is for miserable people who can't afford anything better.

So do you consider "miserable people who can't afford anything better" all those gamers with Ultra PCs?

Windows as a main OS is a horrible experience IMO. I want a normal start menu. I don't want anything to do with the Windows app store which is full of 99% junk. I don't want most of the preinstalled bullcrap like the XBox app, people, Cortana, etc. I don't want automatic updates forced on me (especially when I can't even set reasonable working hours). Yes, I understand most of these things can be mitigated but it takes work. Prior to Windows 8, these things just worked.

I still have Windows installed but it is entirely to boot into Steam/Orgin/BattleNet. I'd rather not mess around with Wine since I already paid for a Windows key. But the Windows user experience has drastically gone down over the years. If you aren't a gamer, you should 100% be using a Mac or a ready out of the box Linux distro like Ubuntu or Mint. I absolutely hate what Windows has become and it is a miserable experience now.

>Today, Windows is for miserable people who can't afford anything better

As I sit here running Windows on a Macbook...

Not sure "afford" has anything to do with it. Hate to be that guy, but Ubuntu has gotten really good....

That's absolutely true (it's my favorite Linux distro), but it doesn't help much if an application you require isn't available for that OS. If you are a gamer, you are probably going to run Windows. If you are an iOS developer, you will probably have a macOS machine. If a great web browser is all you need, then just about any OS is going to work well for you.

All of the big operating systems are very good these days and have been for quite a while.

Let's think about it:

- You probably run it on Macbook because native Windows laptops are sub-par and bad value for the buck. Reinforces my point.

- You probably run it because you have to. Reinforces my point partially.

Yes, maybe Win10 is not so awful anymore. Who cares, the damage is done. The trick is not hitting the target once in a blue moon. The trick is hitting it every time, and it's obvious MS can't do that. Between Windows ME, Vista and Win8, can you remember even one comparable failure from Apple?

Win8 was so bad, it made Linux desktop look usable by comparison. Even as it was itself neglected as OSS enthusiasts moved to Mac OS en masse.

>can you remember even one comparable failure from Apple?

Apple's products are big ugly failures very often:

- Siri is a disappointment from usability point of view and ridiculed on the internet when compared to other digital assistants

- Apple Newton

- Apple servers, where it turned out that in the server market a shiny case doesn't matter as much as power, efficiency, and cost (bang for your buck)

- G4 Cube

- Any of their several mouses

- Any of their several keyboard

- The U2 itunes incident

- The "You're holding it wrong" fiasco

- The recent hilarious iphone X calculator bugs

- iPhone bending

No, I run on a Macbook because that's what my work gave me.

No, I use Windows because I like things just working. OSX/Linux doesn't just work.

>one comparable failure from Apple

Just the whole damn OS. If I want unix based I'll use Linux.

I don't think it's a matter of affording something better since GNU/Linux is free.

We are talking about full-stack offering. Laptop + OS + support.

In this market, unfortunately, Linux is non-player. Even Google Pixel is more visible.

The only Microsoft hardware you can buy is a Surface, this scope seems like an insignificantly narrow topic of conversation.

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