Apple Just Ended the Era of Paid Operating Systems

I love how Apple ended the era, when Microsoft just offered their last update for free starting last week. But enough of the Apple sensationalism, in fact, this is just not true.

The OSs are only now free as upgrades, sure this seems free from the end-user point of view, the real money is made (by Microsoft) on the licenses manufacturers and businesses pay for the OS. I suspect the 'upgrade' fees were always just a nice icing on the cake.

Furthermore, with the free upgrades, OS companies get to decide when you are forced to update your hardware. Automatically stripping the availability for hardware more than two years old (as I believe Apple have done with iOS7) means that those devices now feel ages older. Both Microsoft and Apple can play this game where devices runnning an older chip are not allowed to upgrade and possibly not allowed to run newer programs, suggesting/forcing the user to purchase new hardware.

Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but weren't old versions of OS 9 free back in the day?

Also, what's with the headline followed by this in the second paragraph: "And just last week, Microsoft announced that, much like Apple, it would not charge consumers who upgrade their machines to the latest version of Windows, version 8.1."

MAN!

Apple is first to do everything.

First to free, first tablet, first rounded rectangle.

Amazing.

Hmm, I haven't paid for a Linux distribution since I started using it over ten years ago.