Is that really true? I feel like they would need _everyone_ to be willing to pay that much, and on a recurring basis somehow to make support sustainable. The

Is that really true? I feel like they would need _everyone_ to be willing to pay that much, and on a recurring basis somehow to make support sustainable. The value of marketing to Windows users is in the network effect. If one Windows user can pay $1000 to avoid advertising and change nothing else, the other users will probably hear about this and take notice. But if every Windows user is subjected to ads, I very much doubt that Microsoft is making $1000 in advertising revenue from just one person. Microsoft would never convert 100% of users to "ad-free" paid subscriptions, at any price. But they can make money directly from advertising to 100% of their users, and there is no "loss" except from attrition (which I would guess is still probably quite a bit smaller than their numbers for overall user-base growth.)