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by suby 1147 days ago
You say that Windows is a Kraken, but it's been on a downward slide in my mind. I don't think Nadella gets enough flak for what is happening to Windows and Microsoft's attitude towards respecting users / privacy in general.

Some examples that I've seen posted to HN over the past few months

* Microsoft Edge leaks browser history to Bing - https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/25/23697532/microsoft-edge-b...

* More ads in Windows 11 start menu - https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/17/microsoft_windows_sta...

* Absolute junk shoved into the Windows UI - https://thomasbandt.com/the-day-windows-died? https://birchtree.me/blog/the-windows-11-trash-party/ https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-keeps-feeding-tabl...

Windows is in a boiling frog situation. It's been slowly accumulating dark patterns and anti-features like mandatory online-only accounts, while at the same time losing quality of life features like the ability to move your taskbar or to not combine apps in the taskbar.

I should be using Windows today. I grew up on Windows, I learned to program on Windows, I had a very difficult and bumpy transition in getting off of Windows. But I had to leave their ecosystem because they have absolutely no respect for the user, and at this point I do not trust them. I want to reiterate that these are recent things, I'm not mad at them for what they did in the 90's here.

They aren't treating Windows as a serious tool for getting shit done, they're treating it as a data-mine and advertising opportunity.

3 comments

I think that given the declining share of profit coming from windows, it wouldn’t be surprising for me if it just gets worse.
At this point, I'm wondering how they can make it worse.
Pretty sure Windows is on the path to no longer being interesting and necessary for Microsoft. Either they come up with a brand new iteration, or everything will go to the web.
What are people going to run on their computers?
In that scenario, as with Android dominating on smartphones, probably Linux. But desktop Linux isn't yet equivocal, and IMO, likely never will be.
Personal computers are on their (slow) way out. Phones provide good enough connectivity and communications for a lot of people. If you can only afford one, most people would choose a phone rather than a computer.

Business computers are still needed for office workers, for now.

Well it's not going to happen overnight, but my guess is a slimmed down OS that runs a powerful web-browser.
MacOS and ChromeOS.
I‘m not sure if Microsoft ever cared about user privacy, being a major player in mass surveillance and data processing for the US government. Instead of selling out our data to a nation state, they are now engaging in surveillance capitalism, too.

If you care about privacy, there is only one option, and that’s Desktop Linux, albeit less than ideal in many use cases.