Worth noting: For home users, the first year of that Win 10 Extended Support appears to cost only $30. Has MS decided that "make it cheap & easy to be legal" is their best counter-piracy strategy?
I don't think my parents will be paying $30 for Windows 10, and neither will many non-IT friends. Plus, even if you decide to go legal after a year, you're still paying the cumulative price ($60 if you buy a year of support in November 2026). I think their pricing strategy is more "don't blame us for the lack of competition in the OS space, we offered you an alternative to replacing your hardware" than "make it cheap & easy to be legal".
If they wanted to make the offer look good, I think they would've put out special offers with OneDrive storage and a year of extra security support for $5 per month rather than $2.50 a month for just updates.
If they wanted to make the offer look good, I think they would've put out special offers with OneDrive storage and a year of extra security support for $5 per month rather than $2.50 a month for just updates.