Oh wait, for 99% of users there is no difference between Office 2010 and Office 365. In fact, the only significant difference I can think of is the pricing model. If the old office were free, there would be almost no reason to use the latest version.
Thanks, Microsoft. /s
I think there are legitimate reasons they don’t give it away for free, like some replies have mentioned. I was trying to draw attention to the fact that Office 2010 works just fine for most use cases, making this activation kerfuffle and Office 365 in general seem even more like a soulless cash-grab.
It rarely works – but it's miles better than “this file has been locked for editing by somebody else”, so I'd still call it an improvement over 2010. (Just not an improvement over its competitors.)
I have a few collaborators with whom it’s not really feasible due to incompatible versions, but mostly it works for me.