But I agree it's absolutely nuts that advertisements and "suggested content" is included as standard without a very clear prompt on first use saying "you can turn this off if you like" -- or perhaps a "set this PC up as a work machine" choice in installation that automatically shuts the noise off and adds the Windows classic theme rather than the weird start-metro hybrid we have now.
I'm not sure I'd pay any price for modern Windows 2000, but I'd certainly sing its praises which is something I've never been able to do.
I'd pay to remove the 2021 social media/marketing BS, sure.
But there's no reason for them to do that. They can instead offer Windows VIP down the line as a subscription-model recurring payment to keep ads and other shit away.
This isn't anything specific to Microsoft, this is what any company that wants to maximise its profits would do.
Doing the right thing isn't "what's right for the consumer" any more, it's "what's right for everybody" -- but where "everybody" is defined as the provider, its shareholders, and perhaps whatever subset of all customers contribute the most to the bottom line.
Has to benefit the provider, "they're running a business not a charity" -- an innocuous line of dialogue from the movies that can be used to justify almost any shitty, consumer-fucking decision you can think of, because we're capitalists, it's 2021, if you're not squeezing every dollar out, you're not doing it right.
Except people in the movies who said shit like that were typically gangsters or at least crooks. But they're the heroes now. The notion that they did wrong never really stuck -- they made lotsa money, you can't blame them. But they got caught, so work hard, run after that dream, they got the idea right -- money is what you want, just gotta be smarter than those silly gangsters.
Do it cleverer -- make your racket legit. It's not extortion, it's a subscription. It's not protection, it's premium. It's not more than they can afford, it's almost too little, they don't even know it's gone.