[tremon]

It's a bit baffling to me that people are talking about Microsoft "losing their way" as if they ever operated differently. They have always been user-hostile if it increased next quarter's outlook. There's a clear continuing thread from the Halloween files in the 90s via antitrust probes in the 00s, the handling of Skype and Teams in the 10s, and now Copilot -- and that's ignoring all the mishandling on the business side of things (e.g. forcing Dynamics cloud migrations, Power Platform in a permanent state of unworthiness, the customary rug pulling via user license changes, constantly renaming products).

Microsoft being good to their customers is the anomaly, not the other way around.

[philistine]

Microsoft has indeed lost their way with Microsoft, but not in the sense that they became evil ghouls. They've always been evil ghouls. No, what's happened is that Windows became a minor part of Microsoft's profits. The whole company is not focused on Windows the way Apple is with the iPhone.

The higher ups no longer care about Windows as a product itself. They only care about Windows as a storefront to their other efforts (OneDrive, Office, Copilot, etc.)

[bell-cot]

I'd read "Microsoft lost their way" as a description of how the speaker's worldview has changed, as they've gained experience and perspective.

Microsoft is often good to their customers. Generally in situations where badness has a poor RoI, or they're trying to lure you deeper into their clutches.

[tombert]

I mean, at least their software used to be pretty good. The Windows NT kernel is arguably a better design than Linux. I complain about NTFS now, but thirty years ago it was better than most other filesystems. And Windows NT at least didn't jam a billion ads down your throat.

Granted, MS has always been a pretty evil anti-competitive company, so I'm not trying to sanitize them much here.