Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

It's not so hidden. It honestly astounds me that users are willing to put up with this bullshit.

The most impressive thing about Microsoft as a company is the way it single-handedly lowered user expectations to the point where ads, security issues, and critical time-wasting failures are somehow considered an acceptable price of entry, and not evidence of an unacceptably shoddy, incompetent, and user-hostile product culture.

View on HN

People who run Windows aren’t the users - they’re the product, either with Microsoft selling their eyes with advertisements, harvesting their usage data through telemetry for a profit, using their numbers to push paid development software, or using their ubiquity to be the basis for computer literacy materials for public schools paid for by taxpayer.

I think the user vs. product dichotomy is not right in this case. Microsoft really does make its money on products and support. You can see this on their public filings.

The relevant dichotomy is more like: people who run Windows aren't the buyers. One-off personal licenses for home PCs are more than a rounding error but are certainly not what made Microsoft what it is.

Governments and F500 companies buy Windows and Office for X00,000 machines for X0 years of support at a time. Enterprise procurement teams are the actual buyers whose opinions matter to product managers.

> harvesting their usage data through telemetry for a profit

Does MS sell their telemetry data?

Well, I came here to comment, but you already succinctly summed up my thoughts. Thanks for that!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com