[dotancohen]

> People have a tendency to gravitate towards free stuff regarless how bad the quality happens to be.

Where does the MS operating system fit in here? Arguably the worst general-computing OS, but by far the most popular. For purpose of discussion, do you consider it free due to being widely pirated?

I'll say that the developer experience on Windows was excellent around the 1995-2005 timeframe. But the user experience was horrible, yet it remained an almost monopoly on the desktop.

[mcguire]

It's "free" because the cost is built into the hardware---MS had licensing terms that made selling hardware without a license a poor choice. As a result, it was preinstalled and no one looked at any alternatives.

[dotancohen]

In the context of the GP's post, that is free. The user did not have to outlay any more money to acquire it.

[nickpsecurity]

It wasn't free: the user was forced to pay for it built-in to cost of the machine even if they intended to use a different OS. That's much worse than free.

[nradov]

Worst compared to what? Microsoft gained its original OS dominance with MS-DOS when the primary competitor was CP/M.

[chronogram]

And for the post 2005 timeframe, I don’t see any alternatives for general purpose desktop operating systems. Can’t install macOS on a device, and while I use Linux systems a lot, I don’t think anyone really develops it for desktop usage. I did hear you can have variable refresh rate monitors in the next Ubuntu release, but no idea about power management and hardware video decoding and all that..

Obviously it’s great in a VM!

[pjmlp]

It was the OS for PCs, only geeks and some IT departments ever bothered updating their OSes.

Regular consumers just handle their computers like appliances, getting a new one with whatever OS it gets bundled with.

The monopoly worked both ways, any OEM was free to ditch Microsoft agreements, they just cared to improve their profits by getting into bed with Microsoft.