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Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

A while ago I wanted to use Visual Studio and it required a Microsoft account.

I decided I wanted to use Visual Studio enough that it was worth creating a Microsoft account for that purpose.

Then, I never did anything with the account other than use Visual Studio.

At some point, a message popped up in Visual Studio saying "the pattern of behavior for your account looks fraudulent, so we're disabling it". Visual Studio still worked fine.

I'm not sure what they were hoping would happen. They forced me to create an account I didn't want and had no use for, and then they shut it down for fraud when I didn't use it. OK?

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> I'm not sure what they were hoping would happen. They forced me to create an account I didn't want and had no use for, and then they shut it down for fraud when I didn't use it. OK?

If that's all it was, then I'd just create throwaway accounts all day long.

But the writing is on the wall. Microsoft wants to associate the software you write with a Microsoft account. It builds "trust" and "legitimacy" when they can "verify" that the software being deployed into the Microsoft store (or elsewhere) was created with a specific developer with an associated Microsoft account. Data mine your git repository and associate your commit metadata (eg; name, email, etc) with other products just as they do already on GitHub. Give you extra benefits (free hosting! remove advertisements! gain extra visibility to recruiters!) if you write software that's popular, and especially if it's only available on Windows; or penalize you (you don't "qualify" for free hosting; it costs $ to remove advertisements from your app; your app has fewer enablements; your LinkedIn profile is less-visible to recruiters; etc) if you write software for other platforms (Linux, macOS, iOS, etc)...

I guess said much simpler: you see the Embrace part by Microsoft's actions. I see the Extend and Extinguish part being enabled by those actions.

That role is usually played by code signatures.

Can someone clarify whether you can still use it without ever creating an account?

In my experience, it's always been possible to use Visual Studio Community without a Microsoft account. It might recommend that you do, but you don't have to. I've been using it this way for years.

Visual Studio has a "sign in" button. I just don't press it and it works.

But skype nags for microsoft account on every login.

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