I do say in my post that I performed a backup. I should have clarified that that was not merely for my benefit while performing the work. My final conversation with him involved handing off a clearly labeled USB drive, and an explanation that all the data from his laptop was copied to that drive and that he should store it somewhere safe.

> Try consoling a few people about how the pictures or files they hold dear are gone forever and then come back and talk about this "dark pattern".

I have, and pretty much every time I've had that conversation with someone it ended with them buying a portable storage drive and having learned a valuable lesson regarding the need for a real backup strategy.

Microsoft's design choices can be both a benefit and an abuse of its users. There's no excuse here for using important features and functionality of the software as an underhanded marketing exercise.