The free upgrade from win 7 keys was used for years as a way to permanently activate any copy of windows using a tool called MAS[1]

[1] https://massgrave.dev/index.html

Nothing lasts forever. Pirates just use hacktivation tools without a key.

Windows 10 was too slow on my Acer laptop so I did a free upgrade to Ubuntu. :)

Windows is ad infested and makes money selling user data. Microsoft already treats paid users like free ones. There is no sense in being a paid user. The product isn't even respectable to buy. No innovation is supported.

Apple has already won the computing space. Look at the windows surface laptop. Copy+paste. Windows UI design. Copy+paste.