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Comment by xg15 | Hacker News Reader

I can understand the outrage over dark patterns, but I think you could also view this change from a different perspective: Microsoft makes it clear that long/medium term they want to make Microsoft accounts mandatory to use Windows and view local accounts as a legacy exception which should be progressively eliminated. If you follow that assumption, it's perfectly logical to see a local account as an "error".

So if the roadmap is that clear, I think the better question is why people go still along with it and keep using Windows.

Or alternatively: Why are software companies allowed to just make those decisions, even it could potentially disrupt the work of millions of users.

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>"I think the better question is why people go still along with it and keep using Windows."

I've been using Windows for almost 30 years now, and while I've given different distros of Linux and MacOS an honest try, I am never as comfortable or as fluent with them as I am with Windows. I know there is an extensive amount of customization that can be done with Linux to get it really close but it just isn't the same.

I'm also at the level where I am comfortable enough with gpedit and regedit that as long as there is a way to turn most of the annoying and onerous "features" off, I can keep on truckin'. For instance, disabling Cortana in the start menu.

> why people go still along with it and keep using Windows

Because it's often the only option in the corporate world.

And this is probably the fate of Windows in the long run: a desktop operating system for corporations.

Windows will be the reason for Linux overtaking the gaming and home desktop market.

They'll pull a 180 right around Windows 13 when linux OS is released that works by default with 95% of games and 95% of hardware takes 20% of the desktop market.

Not if Microsoft can pull off some Secure Boot shenanigans. For your safety.

Like they already did on ARM.

the funny thing is: In corporate editions of Windows, you can easily disable all that crap via GPOs.

It's only the home-users that get hit by this....

>In corporate editions of Windows, you can easily disable all that crap via GPOs.

In fact, one of the Group Policies is for specifically blocking Microsoft account logins.

(Yes, I have that policy turned on.)

We’ve taken the same tact in my home. Instead of fighting it using ever evolving tools, we just use Group Policy and wholesale disable it all.

Windows is a joy to use when you turn off all the half-baked consumerized nonsense.

> I think the better question is why people go still along with it and keep using Windows.

The reason investors and CEOs love monopolies and oligopolies so much is that they don't have to care about users, they can abuse them as much as they want.

Windows machines are the only affordable option for millions of people so they have to keep using it, no matter how much they hate Microsoft. Governments should be less tolerant of important companies that abuse their power.

>Windows machines are the only affordable option

And before anyone chimes in saying "Linux is Free Open Source Software!", remember the old saying: Time is money.

Almost noone wants to spend time messing with their computer. A computer might be the end to a means for Linux neckbeards, but for the rest of humanity a computer is simply a means to an end.

Windows, unlike Linux, satisfies that role of being a means to an end, of just being a tool for bigger things. Buying a Windows license is, in fact, more affordable than messing in Linux.

Because it's a well-studied science just how much most people will put up with. Most people are 100% path of least resistance, and that is simple to manipulate.

People also willingly addict themselves to the dumbest things. They can't use linux because some stupid nike sneaker app doesn't work on it, they can't use libreoffice because the menus are different. Even most of the real differences are unneccessary gimmicks that only exist to create exactly that trap. Developers too slurping up the whole vs stack, feeds back to all the shitty apps that people can't live without only existing on windows.

> I think the better question is why people go still along with it and keep using Windows

A lot of non-open source desktop software available only for Windows and MacOS. While I dislike MacOS less than Windows 10 or especially 11, MacBook is more expensive than Windows notebook or mini-PC.

>why people go still along with it and keep using Windows.

Because Windows runs Win32.

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