Most (in my experience) users don't have backups for their devices. Some data, like pictures, are maybe 'backed up" by the cloud provider of their choice via their phones. Further, some users may store important files in multiple places but most don't. And losing data is a real pita.
I really respect Microsoft core engineers, but wish they’d revolt and quit over the team focused on driving profits via toxic behaviours like online account requirements, and embedding one drive into everything. I even get spam emails *from* Microsoft on newly created corporate o365 accounts, like what the actual fuck is wrong with them to think that’s okay?
Luckily I did have backups... but it could have been worse. A mom losing all the baby footage of their child because of lost/broken/damaged encryption is not a pleasant thing to explain to someone.
Are you employed by Microsoft, or have any professional association with the company?
Stop buying into the perception that your computer, and the data on it belongs to the OS author, or the author of the software that is running on it.
It does not. It belongs to you. The person who bought it. It is yours to shove bits through as you please. The industry is just incessant on reserving that level of control over everyone's systems for themselves, and trying to convince you, that no, they really know best, and you should pay them and hand them your data. They'll swear up and down that isn't what they are doing, but their actions say otherwise.
...That you have to go to such lengths to do so is a thing worthy of ridicule.
The number of times I've had to bail someone out because they wrecked their computer and I had to pull their HDD/SSD is a _lot_.
If they didn't encrypt their cloud content but lost their password, it's recoverable, the same as from an unencrypted hard drive.
If they encrypt it, they're SOL.
If people are doing things right, everything should be encrypted.
"Average users" don't do things right.
I hate saying it, but experience has played this out for me time and time again.
Instead of discouraging encryption, use it as a way to encourage backups in the future.
But I think you're overestimating the capabilities of an average user.
I'd be comfortable guess 60%+ of users don't know how to manually copy files to an external drive with any sort of reliability. ETA: Unless you're willing to spend three or four hours a user teaching them, forever become their personal IT service, and recognize that there's _still_ a non-neglible chance they copy the wrong thing, it's not always worth it.
Else it's just a jot pad containing nothing sensitive, and can as well be plaintext.
I backup a good deal of things but I encrypt only a small subset.
Yes? I mean, it exists and I know of at least a half dozen people in immediate proximity to me that have kept old devices around in case they want their photos later. Some have them backed up elsewhere as well, sure. Contrary to your assertion, I'd guess the opposite - I suspect there's a large number of people, especially non-technical people, with phones in drawers with information they'd like to have available for "some day." Obviously speculation based on my own experience.
WRT the off device syncing being default, that is fine up to the Xgb that the provider offers free, anything beyond that is not synced without a monthly subscription, and the same people I know that are keeping phones around are also not paying for that.
When your password is the same password you use to login to your device and/or your fingerprint or faceprint, it's a bit hard to "lose". That's exactly what I mean by user ergonomics trade-offs. Technically, it might be better to have a different password for important things that are encrypted vs your login password, but in practice what matters is that the average user's device is basically a brick to a thief both from the perspective of using said device on the black market or stealing the user's data.
Maybe this is one of those weird splits that now exists in the world between people who operate in sane UX ecosystems like Apple-land vs those who continue to accept unending abuse from Microsoft and Google in the Windows/Android cesspit. I just don't see the issue you're describing occurring for most average users in 2023, at least in the West.
Right! Not to mention the users with memory problems. That is a lot of people. Dementia is common, just for a start.
Data recovery. Key loss. Being able to put the drive into another computer and get data off is more common to the average user than someone physically compromising their computer and trying to read their secrets.
If I were to die, is my wife though? No. She is not. So if I want her to access stuff if I die, then that means me leaving documentation for her. Which doesn't really result in better security - how can I encrypt stuff I've had to literally print out.
The ergonomics is a HUGE factor.
I'm not familiar with how Mac does things, but some of those solutions prioritize security over reliability and store the keys in a crypto processor that can't be backed up, leaving no way to recover the drive if they break.