Microsoft EVP Yusuf Mehdi said in a blog post last week that Windows powers over a billion active devices globally. This might sound like a healthy number, but according to ZDNET, the Microsoft annual report for 2022 said that more than 1.4 billion devices were running Windows 10 or 11. Given that these documents contain material information and have allegedly been pored over by the tech giant’s lawyers, we can safely assume that Windows’ user base has been quietly shrinking in the past three years, shedding around 400 million users.
My personal experience with Windows has been different.
I’ve not seen advertising in Windows; where have you seen that?* I’m a bit shocked about Microsoft spying on me, too. Do you have any sources on that? It feels like that should be illegal in Europe and would make headlines.I don’t use desktop office software and haven’t purchased any desktop software in probably a decade. My business makes heavy use of Google Workspace and uses online services that are agnostic to the operating system. The only things I’m really installing on my machine are developer tools through
apt-getand games through Steam.*) Edit: Windows periodically prompts to use Edge or subscribe to Office 365; I had forgotten about that because it’s perhaps less frequent here in Europe.
I log into a windows 10 server and see system notifications ads pop up. Here is an example of one i’ve seen several times across multiple windows 10/11 boxes.
When you install windows from fresh, you have a bunch of “suggested” apps on your task bar which are ads. Spotify for example.
Then you also have Notifications that tell you the news, which are sponsored news. Then you have other notifications telling you to use this or that Microsoft service (eg. oneDrive), another form of ads.
If you have the know-how to install windows 11/without logging into a Microsoft account, the notifications pester you endlessly to log in to a Windows account, which uses an outlook email, of course.
If you use a browser that isn’t Edge, you’ll be routinely “reminded” how amazing edge is. Also, even if you uninstall Edge, it reinstalls itself after every update. Same happens with Copilot. Even if you don’t want to see those programs, because they are ever-present, you’re more likely to use them.
All of these are forms of ads and outright user abuse, probably worthy of having Microsoft being fined again. Maybe you don’t care, but this is definitely happening.
I’m also in the EU, my laptop was bought in the EU.
You’re right that Edge routinely attempts to make its return—that’s annoying alright. Microsoft is skirting a fine line here since they were found guilty of antitrust practices for this very thing. (Tangentially, I wonder if iPhone users have the same complaints about Safari.) In Europe, at least, those updates prompt you whether to make the switch, and the user remains in control. It’s been many years since Microsoft changed my defaults.
You’re also absolutely right about the attempted upsells for Office 365 or OneDrive or whatever. I agree they’re ads and that they’re annoying, but not more so than how my MacBook constantly nags me about iCloud or how iPhone consumes it with app data, or how Google leverages its surfaces for Photos, Drive, Workspace and Gemini upsells.
In the end all these companies arrive at the same challenge: converting a one-time purchase into regular payments through subscription models. I had honestly forgotten about these prompts until you reminded me of them, and so long as they’re irregular and easy to ignore, I feel like Microsoft isn’t doing anything outright awful.
I often think communities like Lemmy choose to disproportionately hate on things. In this case it’s Windows, which I really don’t think is warranted.
But it is, though. You just choose to not see it that way. Laptops aren’t cheap and Windows comes priced into the purchase. They already made money from you, that was always their business model.
For me, if I already paid for the product, that’s it. The company loses the right to advertise to me and milk me for further revenue, and just because its industry standard it doesn’t make it okay: the law should be tighter around this. Full stop.
I wonder if consumers would choose to pay more to opt out of this. Surely corporations have done their research, because none of them have chosen to offer a buy-out option. To be perfectly frank, I wouldn’t pay more for a laptop for a guarantee that I’m not prompted for any up-sells, and it’d only make the consumer offerings more confusing if such an option existed.
All these companies are forcing themselves into the corner of offering the one-time fee to be as low as possible, preferably free, and find other revue channels after the purchase. I hold them all equally guilty of this: why pay $100 for Windows when there’s no such fee for a Chromebook or MacBook? Microsoft is forced by competition to reduce the fee and recoup it elsewhere, and they’re in my opinion not even the worst among those examples.
It’s odd that Lemmy directs its anger at an individual company, while they’re all guilty of the same practices, instead of towards their government representatives who are actually able to take action against it.
What? Lemmy fucken hates the government dude. People here absolutely rail against the government to take action against these practices and companies.
It’s ironic that the only comment in this thread suggesting government action is your response. Lemmy is an echo chamber no better than the internet communities that predate it. The only thing Lemmy truly hates, is a nuanced opinion.
Because this thread has nothing to do with government? The topic is windows losing customers.
I completely agree. People here are outliers in ideas and passion. But upvotes and downvotes mean nothing here so its fine.
To a degree yes (ignoring the fact that assumption proved to be incorrect, but who comes here for facts), however the comments mostly don’t focus on that topic; much of the discussion here is about how evil Microsoft is and malicious Windows is as a product. The individual I replied to before you was the one who immediately sidestepped into a debate about laws that should restrict Microsoft’s ability to operate as a company.
Ha, this genuinely made me laugh out loud! An amusingly and refreshingly optimistic position! I’d have chosen the words “circlejerk of pessimisme, hate and nativity” but it’s certainly accurate to call the community exceptionally passionate among each other.
Open up your start menu and start typing, what comes up? Is it just apps or in other words program within your local hardware? Are there suggestions from the Internet or in other words an advertisement.
The results are honestly pretty spot on, at least for my use cases, and this isn’t different from how Chromebooks or MacOS does it (although for the latter, Spotlight results are hilariously terrible). Even Linux distros often combine on-device and online search results—are those also advertisements? I’m puzzled why Windows is called out in particular on this.
If my Linux distro searched the internet, when I opened my launcher, I’d be finding a new Linux distro.
I distinctly recall a version of Ubuntu that not only showed search results, but Amazon shopping links.
And i no longer use Ubuntu. I remember that too. I also remember such large push back that it was removed
I still have fond memories of using Ubuntu. At the time, it must have been 2009 or so, I was working at a company developing desktop software for Windows, OS X and Debian. It’d be so confusing to constantly switch between operating systems because it’d mess with my muscle memory, but Ubuntu was my favorite because of POSIX and the fantastic file manager.
For my purposes and from my experience, things have improved tremendously on Windows, despite it being popular to hate upon. I still frequently use Mac as well and it’s really hardly changed at all. I confess that I only ever use Fedora on a remote instance for very specific purposes and can’t really judge it fairly on day-to-day usage.
I don’t use a PC for very much anymore, so I have little need to use my laptop. But when I do, I’ve honestly just gone with Linux Mint just because it works. And I have Lineage OS on my phone, which is my primary computing device.
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I didn’t mean to have upset you as I wasn’t aware that European users weren’t allowed to comment here. I only ever meant to speak to my own experiences and not on behalf of anybody else.
That guy is a jackass. Probably an American upset that he’s a minority on Lemmy. Don’t mind him.
I reviewed the community rules and didn’t see anything about Europe, so I’m left confused about what I’ve done wrong.
Check the part about misinformation.
Kindly reference the sections where I’ve provided misinformation and I will add a correction.
I see my comment about advertising and will clarify it.