Wouldn’t the “advertising platform” part always suck, though? What I mean is that the problem is not an “identity crisis”. It’s that it’s becoming enshittified.
I agree. I don't think Microsoft is confused - Windows is becoming an advertising/"service" platform. This is entirely intentional. I also don't think that product managers or executives think of themselves as building an "OS" anymore. That's a very technical way of looking at the product vs. whatever business buzzwords at in vogue.
Which is insane to think about given the hard open-source "engineer first" pivot Satya has taken the company.
It's like Windows team is committed to building the complete antithesis of that vision.