[alkonaut]

Without the MS account, it is _much_ harder to sell OneDrive, Copilot, Office365-whatever subscriptions etc to their users.

I get it. I get that they need to upsell their customers OR their product would be more expensive. I'd be happy to pay that premium though, and I'm not going to buy any of those additional things.

But let's not pretend that this is purely an evil or thoughtless design choice that isn't economic in Nature. Windows has a cost and that cost gets subsidized by all the people who buy additional services.

[bayesnet]

I do not think that it is as well-reasoned as that. Far more likely IMO that teams are being evaluated on upsell uptake and so push these requirements to make the number on the dashboard go up.

Anyway, I’d be more sympathetic to this way of thinking if windows wasn’t getting worse over time. But it seems like investment in the OS is being disfavored for investment in AI-in-things-no-one-wants-AI-in, which is inverse of the subsidy direction you propose

[0x1d7]

> I get that they need to upsell their customers OR their product would be more expensive.

Then buy Pro. Most people aren't happy to spend more money.