They're starting to get desperate because a billion machines can't/won't 'upgrade' to 11. The ewaste from excluding a billion machines is just incredible. This from a company that claims to be green.
Genuine question: In which country do you live where working Windows 10 PCs are sent to the landfill?
I look on my country's used market online every day for my hobby, and every functioning PC/laptop all the way from the MS-DOS, Windows 95 era, XP, Vista, and 10, finds a buyer for the right price. Pentium 4s, Pentium 3s, Pentium 2s, Pentium MMXs, 486s, you name it. Nobody's throwing them away in the landfill when there's always a buyer/taker for them if you have patience.
I feel like people are making up imaginary ewaste on the Windows 10 topic just to cause a hubbub, but where I live there's literally no such thing going on, nor have I seen any proof of it happening anywhere else. Even PCs older than Windows 10 always find a buyer! Let that sink in.
If people in your country throw working windows 10 PCs in landfills, I feel like the issue is with the people in that country being needlessly wasteful and uncaring to sell/give away to those in need, not with Microsoft.
Edit1: would the downvoters care to explain themselves with some arguments? Or do people love overreacting to ideas they don't like via a button instead of formulating a though?
Edit2: @kstrauser below:
1) why would you throw away a working PC instead of giving it away for free? Who have you met who throws away working PCs in the trash when they no longer get the latest OS? There's old people still using Windows 7 PCs just because it works for them and it didn't break down. What makes you think they'll throw away working Windows 10 PCs in dumpsters now?
2) Why would you ship the PC in another country using fuel, when someone locally will pick it up for free to use it? Like I said, there's always a taker.
I see no arguments so far against my points just imaginary scenarios of super wasteful people who throw away good stuff randomly, but then not Microsoft nor anyone can stop them throwing Bugattis off cliffs if that's their jam.
Edit 3: @SECProto below:
I asked how many people you know who throw in dumpsters working Windows 10 PCs, and you went on a tangent answered something completely different, in bad faith I would say. Of course all computing tech eventually gets landfilled due to obsolescence, that's inevitable, but if you post an ad for a Windows 10 PC now, someone will take it from you to use it, if you post an ad for a Pentium 3 PC now, someone will take it from you to use it. There's no excuse to just throw working PCs in a landfill other than malice. If your society mass landfills PCs the moment $LATEST_SW doesn't run on them, instead of finding new owners, then your society is at fault.
But anyway, technology is so dense where I leave that you can’t give away some stuff. A 10 year old PC? Maybe. 15-20 years? No way, unless someone needs a specific part from it. There is zero demand otherwise for such a thing. There’s so much new tech that slightly older is nearly valueless locally.
Regarding your comment here, no offense, but that sounds more of an issue with your country/society where you live being too wealthy, throw-away and consumerist, than anything else. So I don't see how this is Microsoft's fault if people landfill working stuff at the smallest inconvenience or passing of age just because they're bored of the working old stuff and always want the new shiny. Which is the point I was making initially: super-wealthy frivolous society problem.
For example, I live in a rich EU country, and even here every PC no matter how old or new it it, has a taker coming by to pick it up, if you put it up online as a gift. There's plenty of people into retro computing here or tinkering with older stuff who'll find a use in their garage or basement as a hobby project or whatever. Every PC gets sold, nothing gets landfilled.
Sure, eventually they'll all be landfilled like everything else, but that's inevitable given enough time and obsolescence, but definitely not the moment they don't run $LATEST_SW, that's just absurd. If some countries do that, then it's the problem of that country being frivolous, not Microsoft for not providing endless SW support on a 10 year OS. That's just not economically feasible given the $100 license fee, but you can still use that HW.
Many people don't have space to store an old computer. Many people don't have time to try to sell it on ebay or FB marketplace. So they will again follow the path of least resistance: throw it away.
Sure, some people will donate it. But even then there's so much old working computer stuff in the USA that my high school wouldn't even accept more.
The old working computer storage room was full.
The situation is unfortunate but it's not because people are needlessly wasteful or uncaring. They're just trying to survive and live their lives and Microsoft told them their working thing doesn't work anymore.
> Edit: would the downvoters care to explain themselves with some arguments?
I'll bite. I know many many many people who had all the era's of PC you mentioned. None of them still have them. None of them sold them. They may have put them on the curb, or "recycled" them, or sent them to the landfill - I don't know and it doesn't impact the fact that I don't know anyone who has a single one of them still in use.
This is easy to confirm by doing some order of magnitude math on how many of these machines were made (many), and how many are still in use (very few).
Regarding the Windows 10 specific question: it is still supported and receives updates, so of course they aren't going to landfill yet. The question is what will happen in a year or so once they are no longer supported (most non-techy users wont be installing LTSC). Spoiler: the vast majority of them will be sent to landfill or "recycler", not sold and kept in use.
I’m not claiming I’d throw out a Windows 10 PC. I’d personally install Linux on it instead. But I can certainly imagine someone seeing nothing worth salvaging from a 10 year old PC and tossing it, and I can’t say they’re objectively wrong for doing it. Should they personally ship it to another country at some cost in fuel?
I think people are downvoting at your feigned incredulity at something not bizarrely “wrong” to a lot of people.
If you hit a "throttle limit" as you said in a sibling comment - I don't know what that is, but you should take it as a helpful suggestion to post less, not circumvent by editting responses into comments.
> I asked how many people you know who throw in dumpsters working Windows 10 PCs, and you went on a tangent answered something completely different, in bad faith I would say.
Regarding bad faith arguments, see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - assume someone is responding in good faith. It's a boring and antagonistic discussion topic.
Anyway, I was responding in good faith to your comment in context, not in isolation. You asked about working windows 10 PCs going to landfill, yes - in a thread where the context is Microsoft discontinuing windows 10 security updates later this year. So no, I agree, working windows 10 PCs probably don't go to the landfill right now - but this situation will change in a year or two, and that is what the whole discussion is about. This was a good faith read on your whole comment, because you talked about all the different generations of PCs, from MS DOS to current, not just windows 10.
If you want only my comment about Windows 10 PCs, read the last paragraph of my other response.
> if you post an ad for a Pentium 3 PC now, someone will take it from you to use it
This is not accurate. Best case, someone might take it, pull the hard drive to try to find something valuable, and dump the rest in a dumpster.
I have a half dozen older PCs (MS-DOS, windows 95, ME, XP, XP) in various boxes. You're welcome to them if you'd like - I would have to pay someone to take them off my hands. This isn't a localized thing, either - I've lived in a number of developed countries (north america, east asia) and the same would apply in all of them. I would say your situation is the unusual one.
> There's no excuse to just throw working PCs in a landfill other than malice
If your PC isn't getting security updates, it is not working. I wouldn't use it for anything online, ever. And if I want to play an old game, emulation is lower energy cost than an old PC.