This, a thousand times this. It's strange it's still somewhat under the radar, it should be much more widely known. They call it LTSC, but it's really Windows As It Should Be.
Just asked this a day ago but got no reply, so here it goes again: it looks like there could be strings attached, possibly due to my ignorance though - can this be licensed to a single user? Recently I was working on a machine with an LTSC release (not mine, acquired by another company) and it didn't seem possible to apply updates, just saying 'contact your system administrator to update'. So I told the company they'd need to sort that out eventually but they also had no clue, and they called the shop wehere they got it but there also no sane response. This is just one data point of course, but does make me wonder: if you as a normal non-enterprise customer get this problem, what's the way to deal with this issue?
Possibly misreading you, but updates behave differently in LTSC. It stays at the same level (1809 in LTSC) until the next major release and just auto-installs (very quickly, in between reboots and without forced prompts) security updates every couple of weeks or so.
Hmm. Machine is gone so I cannot check again, but pretty sure if I'd go to the Windows Update window it would say the standard 'updates are available' or similar and have a clickable 'Download and install'.
I presume that Microsoft has found that home users value having a cheaper PC with ads, over a more expensive PC without ads.
Similar to Gmail and the likes of numerous SaaS companies. There's a freemium version with ads (or some type of limitation) or a paid version without ads (or said limitation).
Basically, tell an ISV (like Connection.com) that you want a small business relationship w.r.t. Microsoft Licensing and they'll set you up. You might have to buy a few random CALs to qualify, but it's totally possible and a godsend.