Microsoft to stop forcing Windows 11 users into Edge in EU countries
theverge.com
theverge.com
77.5% is definitely a "dominant market position". That is the term that matters, people just like to use the word monopoly instead (note: if lots of people use a word "incorrectly" the meaning of the word changes).
End result: Lots of big, successful companies that do shady things and only the EU intervenes and then is the bad guy.
Look at any of the threads about fines for Facebook or the like and you will find many replies to the effect of "The EU is just jealous and should not fine successful American companies".
America has the same laws, basically, as when Microsoft was found guilty.
But.. what if Microsoft plays fair and just ditches this aggressive behavior and shows some respect to its users who have already paid for their Windows license and let them use whatever software they want.
I use Edge as my default browser in Windows and just a few days ago wanted to test something related to web in Chrome. I have chrome installed but didn’t open it in months now.. but, guess what? The moment I clicked the chrome icon, a notification popped up saying something like: “Use edge, a fast, secure.. a bla bla bla browser..”. I was literally shocked by how far can MS go to promote its own products even if you always use them as your main tools.
They've likely run the numbers and found that they make way more money this way. That's the only factor that comes into it. How far can they push and annoy people while still making profit.
I remember a coworker asking me what Chrome is, because "his computer" keeps telling him to install it.
Google's prompts weren't that different than those "Get Firefox!" badges people used to put up in the 2000s.
Largely because they know stuff on the Internet is potentially dangerous and full of ads and their own stuff is not, so they want the two sources (and the search mechanisms thereof) kept distinct.
Web search and local search don't even have the same interface: one takes a string and returns a list of web URLs based on a black box algorithm, the other takes a string along with potential other attributes and returns a list of local files that match a fulltext search.
I don't see any meaningful way to calculate a relevance score across both web results and local files.
The only reason you'd want to do this IMO is if you're desperate to get traffic to your search engine.
1. Gives a place to plug and train the 1P search engine (Bing) or a place to sell access to a search provider (Apple wrt Google)
2. Pretty easy but flashy feature that doesn’t require any real creativity or delivery risks but is flashy enough to get people promoted.
3. Probably user research shows that computer novices are confused by the difference between a file and web search box.
Don’t underestimate the confluence of these three things: it’s easy to justify as good for the (highly technically inexperienced) user, good for the business, and a solid path to a title bump for all involved.
I have a terrible display, haven't bothered - like four zones or something silly
(Also: "Here is how the law should look like: we all should get a raise")
Even so people (HN or not) won't give up their productivity tool their daily work relies on because of some nuisance or really, ideal. I have seen comments where people are so pissed off by the aggressive ads in Windows that they switched to Linux or Mac, but the number is going to be very small.
Even “IT people” - their primary domain of skill is working with Windows etc…
And Microsoft has leveraged this dominance to coerce companies into their cloud services too.
Microsoft is a lich, it can’t be killed. It just has to be managed around.
and honestly, windows is pretty durable these days. 'desktop stuff' is less than 5% of my timesheet and I really do have better things to be doing with my time than trying to achieve the current baseline functionality with noncooperative methods.
In Romania this was a big deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_licensing_corruption... , in other countries maybe they never got caught. I doubt that bribing, as a "strategy", was only used in one country.
[0] "Almost", because I know some large orgs that finally managed to break away, but it wasn't easy at all.
As opposed to the likes of Meta, Apple, Google who operate on the peaceful cooperation and charity paradigm?
Does it look like to you that the other companies got so dominant by not using EEE?
Define "ethical". Depending on the definition, none of the current big companies are ethical, so Microsoft going out of business wouldn't even matter.
And you really need to understand how the world works. Ethical never matters, money matters.
I was thinking about this recently as someone suggested it might be an American thing. But I don't think so - there are plenty of unethical companies in Europe, too. They often manage to exploit some loophole in the law and, say, sell expensive things to old people under some apparently legitimate guises. Or they'll fake car engine tests.
But ethical (=ethically neutral) companies definitely exist, and there are many of them.
That's exactly like saying "if we remove this dictator form this middle eastern warzone, a peaceful and ethical leader will naturally replace him".
No mate, you'll get no ethical alternative, instead Google and friends will immediately take over the power vacuum left by Microsoft before any start-up can even begin hiring.
Nearly all games on steam just work, most modern software just works and the alternative tools never stopped getting better either.
I think that would be a lot better.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37320786 (351 comments)