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Comment by red_admiral | Hacker News Reader

> Companies were paying for more than 30 million Copilot subscriptions as of the end of June. And while individual users are free to use limited versions of Copilot’s chat experience, its most powerful tools are reserved for subscribers to the company’s M365 apps bundle, which has about 90 million paying users.

It needs to be more widely known that if you cancel a (home) 365 subscription, you'll be offered a cheaper version without AI integration.

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Now if I could just get them to start paying me cash for training their AI on my open source code and selling it rather than being force fed a Copilot grant.

There's no 'open source, but closed to training' software license?

How would you possibly enforce that?

Legally? How else would you enforce it?

Like copyright on training input? Fair use has done a lot heavier of a lift on that than it would every have to do on opensource, license prohibiting it or not.

Sorry what? Honest question.

Microsoft allows you to subscribe to Microsoft 365 personal or family without AI for a small discount, but they hid the option on a page you can only get to if you click cancel on your subscription.

Microsoft are currently being sued in Australia by consumer protection (ACCC) over this practice.

And when they lose they will fix it in Australia only.

Iirc Microsoft increased the pricing on existing subscriptions on next renewal citing AI as the reason for the increase, they then added a no AI version at the original price, effectively opting all users into the 'upgrade' rather than requiring them to explicitly upgrade their licence.

H..how is this legal.. in 2026

Likely illegal in the EU. But in the US? 2026 is the year of open corruption, as long as the administration likes you you can do whatever you want.

It’s really surprising to me that after the US public hasn’t internalized how corrupt the country has become. It’s all coming from the top

The US has never been strong on consumer protection. It’s that individualism and buyer beware culture.

Some of us have internalized it! It's like walking around in the twilight zone or the bodysnatchers movie sometimes. In a dream society we could agree on some values and argue about how to direct our shared efforts. In this one we can't agree on values or even facts. It's equal parts maddening and terrifying.

We need help in avoiding the worst futures that could come from this.

Nah, not illegal in the EU. Giving a retention offer to leavers is something magazines sometimes do. It's a bit sleazy, but not illegal.

If you have enough money nobody can tell you what you do.

Governments are above corporations. They can absolutely tell microsoft what to do.

[un]believable. Thank you.

It’s a documented fact that a lot of subscription services will offer you a discount if you ask to cancel. This has been a thing in the US with cable tv for about a decade, as far as I’m aware. I think some cell providers might do the same. Not everything, but some.

But in this case, the discount comes with a downgrade. Still worth it for many people, and Microsoft shouldn't hide it.

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