[jechamt]

Your comment:

> this is for Windows-specific features, so it would require them to think through an open, stable & forever-supported API

seems to directly disagree with the author's analysis:

> These special links only exist to force users into using Microsoft Edge. They serve no other purpose than to circumvent the user’s default browser preference to promote a Microsoft product.

Why do you suggest these are for Windows-specific features?

[daemin]

For that first quote I thought they were being sarcastic since http:// and https:// are exactly an open, stable, and forever supported API.

[pierrebai]

It's not an analysis, it's an opinion. There is no possible analysis: there is a behavior, you choose how to interpret it. It's not like you decompile the code and the machine code spells out "screw you".