[kbolino]

They used to get money from selling products, like Windows. That we are in this situation where they choose to give the OS away for free but then have to scramble to find money in obnoxious ways afterward is bizarre to me. It's not like they started this process with zero market share.

[Krssst]

They have a total monopoly on OSes able to run Windows software; this is their strong point: write some random software in 1996, still works today. As a result they can quadruple-dip by having users pay for the OS, show them ads, inflict them unwanted products, and (maybe? if they don't now they surely could without repercussions) sell their data. This is what monopolies do.

The versions that are respectful of users are gated behind "being a company" requirement.

(exception of Windows Server but it's kinda messy to setup for gaming. Though it kinda shows that when they have actual competition on a market they do nice things)

[kbolino]

Home users generally don't pay for Windows. It comes with their computers and the major version upgrades are free and have been for quite some time; 7→8 (2012) was the last time it wasn't free but 7→10 (2015) was a valid, free upgrade path so most just bypassed 8 entirely (and they were better off for it because 8 sucked). Since Windows 7 was itself released in 2009, most home users haven't paid for Windows upgrades in 16 years.

[Krssst]

Yes, having to maintain an OS over multiple years without recurring revenue might be an issue indeed. On my side I wouldn't mind paying a subscription if the OS could respect my choices. But I guess it does not really make sense to provide a subscription that only a very small handful of people would pay.

(I wonder how subscriptions could handle multiple machines; today it often happens that people have multiple computers but subscription cost would quickly add up; I guess they could have different tiers with different allowed concurrent use count)