I get that Microsoft no longer makes most of their money from Windows, but that doesn't mean it needs to become terrible!
Is that even true? I thought it’s still the cash cow.
Windows revenue is well below Office and Cloud revenue, and even below Xbox revenue. This makes sense; a typical user is probably only paying an average of $100 on Windows, and infrequently at that. The last time I bought Windows was many years ago, when 7 came out. I took advantage of the free upgrade to 8 and then 10 since then.
Windows 10 is a sponsorship OS. Just like most laptops and tablets.
I don't see the problem here. If you don't want it, don't buy Windows. This stuff isn't a secret. What's important is Microsoft's profitability, and from what I've seen, these moves have been very good for MS's bottom line, so therefore they're good choices for the company to make.
>but that doesn't mean it needs to become terrible!
Why not? Are you going to stop using it as it becomes more terrible? Of course not. So why should Microsoft care about your opinion that Windows "has gone downhill"? It's in their best interest to extract as much money out of you as possible (thanks to spyware, adware, shovelware), and to not bother wasting money on things like quality control, because the users absolutely will not give up on Windows no matter how bad the experience becomes for them.
Not always possible for various reasons.
> Why not? Are you going to stop using it as it becomes more terrible? Of course not.
That's where you might not be so right. I've got three friends (gamers, but not developers) who moved to Windows a year ago and they're still happily using it. We occasionally go to Windows to play some games, but I wouldn't be surprised if MS are annoying more and more people who only need a weak excuse to move away from Windows.
It might make them short term money, but eventually people will do something about it. A lot of people aren't as stupid as the HN crowd sometimes makes them out to be.
Anti-Windows optimists have been predicting the demise of Windows for a couple of decades now, and it isn't any closer to happening now than it was around 2000. The only thing that'll actually unseat Windows is the rise of mobile devices. If they can ever get things so that your phone can also be your computer, then Windows will be done for. Until that day, the vast majority of users (including businesses) simply will not give it up, no matter how much MS abuses them.
> The only thing that'll actually unseat Windows is the rise of mobile devices. If they can ever get things so that your phone can also be your computer, then Windows will be done for.
This I actually don't agree with, a lot of people don't have a work mobile device and I doubt most people would want to mix their personal and work machines even if they did.
Here we're getting into a big factor: work vs. personal computing devices. I agree, a lot of people (including myself) don't have a work phone and don't want one.
So let's look at the two cases separately: home and work.
For home, I simply don't see people moving away from Windows, unless it means giving up a PC altogether, which actually has been happening to some extent with tablets and phones, which is exactly what I said before with the rise of mobile devices. The ones who insist on having PCs just aren't moving to Linux; I see no evidence of that whatsoever. Even my Linux-using (at work) colleagues all use Windows at home, and just keep talking about how Win10 is going to make them switch, but I'll believe it when I see it. If they haven't switched after all these years, I have zero confidence that Win7's EOL is really going make them move. People have been saying for so many years how they're going to switch to Linux because they're tired of Windows, and it never really happens; it's just like having fusion power plants or flying cars.
For work, most businesses seem to be stuck on Windows, and again I don't see that changing any time soon. For some development, there's been a big move to Linux, but it seems like most of that has been within VMs, because everyone is still stuck on using MS Office and Outlook, and only the engineering staff cares about using Linux (and actually needs it in many cases in fact). I just don't see how this will change any time soon; I've been waiting 20 years now for corporations to start moving to Linux, and instead we've seen some European cities do it, and then give up and move back (Munich). Again, I simply see zero evidence that there's any move in this direction, despite how much some of us would like to see it.