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Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge
- watermelon0 5y agoMicrosoft finally made a browser which renders websites as expected, is up-to-date regarding security and features, and (most) people actually don't have the need to replace it with anything else. I will never understand why they NEED to ruin this. It's baffling.
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoThey copied a browser which renders websites the same way as the browser they copied from. Value add, whether you like their choices or not, is arguably the only reason one would pick their browser over the browser they copied.
- tempfs 5y agoIt is a for profit company, the reason is always profit.
- globalise83 5y agoIf you simply subtract some estimate of damage to their multi-billion dollar brand, it far outweighs any conceivable revenue from this creepy feature. It is not as if buy-now-pay-later is not already widely available on most merchant checkout pages. This will just be one option among many.
- Barrin92 5y agoI'm honestly not sure how much profit a 2 trillion dollar company is supposed to generate from an interest free pay later browser bloatware feature Even if you're Scrooge McDuck that sounds not worth it
- FredPret 5y agoThe winning play for them is to make genuinely the best browser, gain market share, and then start their shenanigans. Like Google did
- Mikeb85 5y agoWhat shenanigans do you think Google is pulling? There's nothing equivalent in Chrome...
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoExtension manifest V3.
- Mikeb85 5y agoCare to explain why you think it's a bad thing? Seems like it's mostly deprecating old JS ways of doing things and introducing new JS features and a better security policy.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoIt's an underhanded way to limit blocking capabilities that they can sell as a benefit.
- coolso 5y agoMost of Chrome’s shenanigans happen on the backend, like with Google in general.
- Mikeb85 5y agoNice non-answer.
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoGoogle is an advertising company. That's what they make their money from. And they are the biggest internet advertising company. Everything they do is aimed at gathering more data for more lucrative ads.
- FredPret 5y agoBut their thinking is flawed. The reason is of course profit, but the result will not be profit.
- derekjdanserl 5y agoThe ultimate result is never profit. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to...
- hvgk 5y agoIt’s not profit. It’s monumentally stupid dick sucking promo hunting product managers. I’ve watched several products ruined by these people over the years. The engineers walk and they become the majority of opinion. Next thing you know your sleek well engineered product looks like a Mumbai train at rush hour. It’s imperative you stop using a product when this happens so that the higher up stakeholders see the damage they do.
- siproprio 5y agoChrome doesn't do this.
- hiddencost 5y agoData
- Mikeb85 5y agoBecause Microsoft's raison-d'être is to extract as much money as possible from computer users. No matter how much they try to not be evil, no matter how many overtures they make to developers, it won't change the fact that Microsoft is basically just a hostile entity out there to extract as much money as possible from the computing scene.
- lytedev 5y agoBecause in the long run you make money best by providing customers valuable services and/or products. If you're screwing over your customers in any way, that is counterproductive to that goal.
- Mikeb85 5y agoMaybe that's true, but these kind of actions are Microsoft's MO. It's how they grew, it's what they'll forever do. I almost thought they had changed when they seemingly shifted to be friendlier when they were trying to attract developers to Azure and embracing Linux and OSS, but obviously not. MS just can't not be evil. Kind of like Oracle.
- cutler 5y agoM$ "embracing" Linux was like The Wicked Witch Of The West embracing Dorothy considering how soon it followed their evil Linux patent racket and funding of SCO's baseless UNIX lawsuit. Beware The Borg, all you who are too young to remember M$'s glory days.
- thow-01187 5y agoHaven't the past past 10 years been a complete refutation of this belief? Money made by hype, fraud, market power abuse or regulatory arbitrage dwarfs profits made by providing value, no longer how long the time horizon. Especially since it's clear that the US establishment's policy is not to prosecute and punish white-collar crime
- judge2020 5y agoI imagine some MBA saw a way they could augment the payment card feature to extract money, and bringing that to their manager is a good permanent gain for them (since they most likely won’t have to answer to the PR team).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoI do understand. Look at Firefox: they are barely hanging on.
- Oddskar 5y agoOnly because the Mozilla foundation spends their money doing all kinds of dumb things that no one wants.
- encryptluks2 5y agoTheir password program was an example of this.
- seoaeu 5y agoThat is not the "only" reason that Mozilla is struggling. There are vanishingly few companies their size who manage to remotely hold their own against Google for over a decade, let alone in a market segment that Google has invested on the order of billions of dollars in engineer time and advertising cost (some of it in the form of "free" advertising on the google.com homepage). That Mozilla has to contend with Google also being basically the only one willing to purchase search deals with them just makes it even more difficult.
- _iziv 5y agoAs long as economics 101 is: "Hello capitalism!" ... What do you expect?
- SahAssar 5y agoThe previous edge (at least the latter versions) weren't that bad. I had about the same amount of issues with safari and the edgeHTML edge, but the big difference for me was that at least I could test edge legally on a non-windows machine while I cannot for safari. I also ran into some issues of corporate policies holding back updates, which seems like a "unique" "feature" of windows. Not being able to legally, without paying, test safari compatibility is crazy to me.
- throwawaymanbot 5y agoThis is what your MS browser has become? Basically a tracking device for “dealz”, Which you can then pay for. It’s basically become the dollar general of browsers. There were insecure browser plugins that did this 10-15 years ago. This is Laughable and sad.
- barbazoo 5y agoAt first I thought this was about Microsoft applying this payment option to purchases made through its (app) store. This applies to purchases made via Edge on any website. I wonder how they do that, will they fill the credit card details with a virtual CC generated on the fly by Zip?
- ziml77 5y agoThat’s what it seems like it has to do. It’s part of the saved payment autofill selector.
- dmix 5y agoFrom my brief research it looks it can generate single-use cards. But they also have retail partners with a more direct option. > As Zip Money has surged in popularity over the years, hundreds of retailers have signed up to join the fun. You can use this BNPL at a range of stores, like Amazon, Target, Harvey Norman, Just Jeans and more. > Zip Money also has a Shop Everywhere^ feature within their app. This allows you to shop at just about any retailer through a single-use card that is created at the time of purchase. All you need to do is add items to your cart and hit 'Pay with Zip' at the checkout! https://mozo.com.au/fintech/how-does-zipmoney-work-read-this-before-you-sign-up https://mozo.com.au/fintech/how-does-zipmoney-work-read-this...
- iypx 5y agoThis was amazing to read. Everybody will cry out loud whenever they hear anything about crypto or blockchain, yet, give them some "Zip Money" from an *app* and they're suddenly all right. What a time to be alive...
- NazakiAid 5y agoMake it hard for others to use other browsers, then push them in to getting in to buying things they cannot afford. Very unethical and I hope there are repercussions for all this horrible behavior.
- prohobo 5y agoCan't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, y'know? I'd like to believe that people will stop using Windows now, but I think at best they might just lose some market share over the next 5 years.
- arthurcolle 5y agoI, too, have been watching Succession
- prohobo 5y agoWhat? I haven't actually! Is that a key phrase they use in the show?
- arthurcolle 5y agoCan't make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs
- firebaze 5y agoI relate to the line of thought this is like spam mail: they like to do obvious errors, because it filters people who'd disturb their money-farming scheme by asking questions.
- intsunny 5y agoThis article is click-bait bullshit. The title says "Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge browser" But the text says: "Microsoft has not responded to repeated requests for comment. Given the widespread condemnation of the feature, it may be reconsidering a full rollout – its deal with Zip permitting." There is zero substance in this article. And I say the above as a 90's Linux die-hard who loves to bash MSFT.
- throwawaymanbot 5y ago>It may be reconsidering a full rollout This is speculation on the articles behalf, so for all intents and purposes until it is officially nixed, it IS going forward. So you basically have said the article is true and you are just being a little hostile no? Do you work on this browser?
- wildrhythms 5y agoWhat part of 'pushes ahead' is click-bait? Microsoft announced the feature, backlash ensued, and despite the backlash there has been no intention of halting the feature. Is that not 'pushing ahead'?
- colejohnson66 5y ago“Pushing ahead” implies they said something later that ignored the backlash. Such as another announcement. If they’re thinking about what to do now, they’re not “pushing ahead”. Just reconsidering. We won’t know what they’re actually doing until the next announcement.
- wildrhythms 5y agoOh please. What evidence is there that Microsoft is 'reconsidering' this rollout exactly?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y agoSlightly related but windows 11 is such a bad version that I'm going back to windows 10. The hotch potch of the old menus and the new menus are bizarre to say the least.
- tempfs 5y agoMy favorite new features of Windows 11 are the fact that my wireless adapter suddenly sucks and that it now takes me two clicks to get the full right click menu.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago> that it now takes me two clicks to get the full right click menu. ...What? What did they do, put all the useful stuff in a submenu?
- AlexandrB 5y agoThat's exactly what they did: https://www.pcgamer.com/windows-11-context-menu-fix-right-click/ https://www.pcgamer.com/windows-11-context-menu-fix-right-cl... It's astounding that they would do this now, when monitor resolutions higher than 1080p are becoming increasingly common, rather than back in the Windows 98 800x600 CRT era.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago>It's astounding that they would do this now, when monitor resolutions higher than 1080p are becoming increasingly common, rather than back in the Windows 98 800x600 CRT era. When you think like a developer/power user it astounding, but not when you think like some MS UX product manager who's chasing some promotion. They most likely justified to the higher-ups "Hey look, the new consumers are more accustomed to mobile devices, which hide or simply don't have any advanced options at all. And mobile devices are selling like hot cakes, right? So if we try to emulate that mobile OS feeling by hiding away all the advanced options that confuse the average user, then consumers will buy those instead of Macs, right? Right?! " They did the exact same shit with Windows 8 where they pushed a tablet UX on the desktop and consumers hated it so much, it entrenched Windows 7 as one of the longest running Windows versions of all time. They fixed some of the issues via Windows 8.1, and reverted back to the more sane classical desktop approach with Windows 10, since most of the consumers were sticking to Windows 7 or even XP. So I expect a Windows 11.1 to follow soon that will bring back some sanity following all the backlash. Or not.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago"Interest-free"? Maybe in the technical sense, but a $4 fee on the minimum $35 purchase for a six week loan is a pretty honkin' high effective rate. If I didn't mess up the inputs, the calculator at https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/financial/apr-calculator.php https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/financial/apr-cal... says this is equivalent to a 163.2642% APR. Granted, the effective rate will be considerably less for larger purchases.
- AlexandrB 5y ago> It allows any purchase between $35 and $1,000 made through Microsoft Edge to be split into four payments over a six-week period. > While the service is being promoted as ‘interest-free’, some were quick to point out that all transactions are subject to a “$4 flat fee”. $4 in fees on $1000 over 6 weeks is an effective APR of around 4% - pretty good. $4 in fees on $35 over 6 weeks is an outrageous APR of around 123%. I'm guessing Zip is hoping most people are closer to the latter than the former. I wonder what kind of cut Microsoft is getting. [1] https://www.calculator.net/apr-calculator.html?cloanamount=35&cloanterm=0&cloantermmonth=1.5&cinterestrate=0&ccompound=monthly&cpayback=month&cloanedfees=0&cfrontfees=4&type=1&x=100&y=7#generalapr https://www.calculator.net/apr-calculator.html?cloanamount=3...
- scottcodie 5y agoThe interest on $35 is only $4 since it is a flat rate not a reoccurring rate.
- greenshackle2 5y agoRight. It's a fixed term loan. Not revolving credit. These 2 loans are mathematically equivalent: $35 at 0% APR, $4 fees, 6 weeks fixed term $35 at 123% APR, $0 fees, 6 weeks fixed term You could argue the high APR loan is worse because interest will be compounding if you miss your payments. But I'm guessing the Zip loan also has late payment fees.
- themitigating 5y agoBut people are probably going to use it for larger amounts where that flat fee would equal a much lower apr.
- PeterisP 5y agoAn APR much lower than 123% is still outrageously high for purchases of $100 or $200 - but in any case, the browser should not get involved in this at all.
- notatoad 5y agoi don't really understand the controversy here. Doesn't google add Google Pay into that same menu in chrome? why shouldn't microsoft offer their payment processor too? i'm not going to use "zip pay", but i'm also not going to use edge. this feels like an excuse for people to get angry.
- hbn 5y agoIt's not just a payment processor though, it's a third-party financing service from a company that myself and I assume most other people have never heard of, which as far as I can tell is built on a business model of tricking people into taking on more debt. I'd at least be a little more forgiving if it was actually a Microsoft service, but the fact that it's gonna be prompting random people to give up their financial and spending details to some random company makes it worse.
- charles_f 5y agoI'm on the fence on this one. I don't like how the feature is pushed "in your face" like that. And at the same time, I trust Microsoft more than the average nowadays company to be respectful of privacy and my data - albeit the average is low and this is a low standard to achieve. If you don't make money out of selling your customer's data, then you need to find ways to actually collect money from them. How it's been done is disgusting, but I think I'm aligned with the why.
- deadbunny 5y agoMicrosoft is still getting all your data.
- spiderice 5y agoExactly. I don’t get how this is any better than what Google does. Google doesn’t sell your data either. They themselves consume your data, and use it to push ads in your face and track you across the web. In other words, collecting insane amounts of data is also bad. Not just the selling of it.
- gianthockey495 5y agoIn fact, personally (just my opinion) I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft sold my data - extra cash for them. Google's main business is ads though - they WANT that data, and I wouldn't say they'd sell it.
- ziml77 5y agoI wouldn’t be surprised, but I’d also need some reasonably strong evidence to believe it.
- charles_f 5y agoTheir ad revenue is marginal and mostly limited to bing. if they use the data that's to tailor the product and sell more of it. On the other hand Google sells your profile to advertisers. Albeit, not you in particular, still leveraging what they know about you to put someone's commercial in front of you. Ms sells to you, google sells you. I get a difference.
- Shadonototra 5y agoThey are doing the exact same mistakes Mozilla did (and still is doing) with firefox..
- hvgk 5y agoI’d be really pissed about this if they hadn’t pissed me off for the last decade and I hadn’t eviscerated every trace of Microsoft from my existence already. Thus I shall merely respond with ”meh” and ”I thought edge was only used to download Chrome”
- mavhc 5y agoIn order to save you a step of using Edge to download Chrome we downloaded Chrome first and renamed it Edge. Imagine if they never told anyone about this and just released it. "Microsoft was apparently hacked today and someone managed to install crapware into the default install of Edge. Crapware, mostly known to be installed by dodgy software installers when you forget to untick something, has been a problem for many decades, but this is the first time it's been installed by default in a Microsoft application (Unless you count Windows 10)"
- kburman 5y agoyou were supposed to destroy the sith not join them
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y agoYou must be pretty young... They were always on the dark side.
- jimhefferon 5y agoIt is a bad sign for a company when they start to focus on selling you finance stuff instead of focusing on what they nominally do. I remember how hard Sears pushed their credit card, for example.
- LadyCailin 5y agoI doubt this is Microsoft’s focus. I think this is some high level PM in the Edge division making this decision, and not getting any pushback from the right people. I doubt this is a sign of satya nadella’s roadmap, for instance. Having said that, if this gets tons of negative media attention, and they still go ahead with it, then that is tacit approval, so.. we’ll see.
- dzhiurgis 5y agoApple’s credit card is huge success. Just about every big tech is doing the same since tech trust is so much higher than banks. Irony is - there’s still always a bank behind.
- bearcobra 5y agoI usually use the Canary build, and I'm a little confused based on the Insider blog post on how this works. It doesn't seem to just offer Zip as an option on any store based on my expeirence doing some Black Friday shopping today. If all it's doing is storing your credentails to an alternative payment system like it already allows you to store your credit card and prefilling it for retailers that offer this as an option, I can see the value of the feature. It'd be nice if they could do the same with PayPal or other services. But if the feature is now adding the option to use this service on websites that don't already offer Zip, I agree that is something that should not be enabled by default for all installs.
- NGRhodes 5y agoMeanwhile in the UK this week ... "The government agreed to regulate BNPL lenders after an independent review chaired by City expert Christopher Woolard, published in February, warned that the sector represented a “significant potential consumer harm”." https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/nov/23/stella-creasy-call-for-urgent-regulation-of-uks-buy-now-pay-later-lenders-klarna https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/nov/23/stella-creasy-...
- callamdelaney 5y agoThey should be regulated but in most cases they're just fine. The vendor gets paid straight away, minus a fee, and the customer gets to pay for their item interest free later. The issue is if they miss their payment, presumably. The benefit to the vendor is that it increases sales / conversion rate & hence worth paying for.
- wokwokwok 5y ago> consumer harm If there was a flat limit on the total you could end up paying, maybe… but there isn’t. Giving cheap loans to people who can’t pay them isn’t “just fine”, it’s predatory behaviour. …but anyway, regardless of either of our opinions, it increasingly looks like it’s going to be legally regulated, so, the point is it’s a risky play for Microsoft.
- lomoeffect 5y agoNot really. Anyone who follows the BNPL space knows that it will end up regulated. The UK government has been very clear about this for the last year and are actively consulting on it.
- lukeramsden 5y agoThere are also offerings that are already regulated and licensed by the FCA, so as long as you stay within their consumer credit guidelines it's not a "risky play".
- dzhiurgis 5y agoMS is probably one of the best positioned to give very accurate digital credit score, given just about everything goes thru their OS and browser. There’s tons of such companies now - basically just scraping your Uber, Postmates, etc accounts and selling that to banks so people without credit history can have a start.
- turminal 5y ago> MS is probably one of the best positioned to give very accurate digital credit score, given just about everything goes thru their OS and browser. I don't think so, lots of people do everything on their phones.
- dzhiurgis 5y agoEspecially people who would use afterpay. That said shopping on mobile still sucks.
- chillingeffect 5y agoDon't forget their access to everyone's work history through linkedin. Corporations are competing to become the Church of England.
- ziml77 5y agoI don’t get how scraping info from Uber and whatnot helps with borrowing money. How are those signals about your risk to the bank?
- dzhiurgis 5y agoShows that you work and earn income, apparently.
- tentacleuno 5y agoReally goes to show that despite how good Edge looks on paper (and I am not denying the technical achievements are impressive), Microsoft are not listening to the people using this browser. Combined with the fact that a lot of people use it because it's practically forced on them[0][1][2][3], the whole model of this browser is egregious. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29251210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29251210 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28108409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28108409 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961649 [3]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=microsoft%20edge&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cutler 5y agoM$ never ceases to amaze regarding how low they'll go to make a dollar. A few years ago it was their infamous Linux patent racket and behid-the-scenes funding of SCO's UNIX lawsuit. Now they're loan sharking. I've also been reading recently about their botched attempt to limit the new hot code reloading feature of .Net 6 to Visual Studio as well as their proprietary debugger code which prevents .Net from ever going truly open source. Same old M$.
- cutler 5y agoI don't know why they why they didn't go all-in and cut a deal with XVideos. Click a button, pay your fee and your window tiles with everything your ** desires.
- butz 5y agoThis is why we need an independent web browser with only basic set of features that are enough for average user.
- aliswe 5y agoyou need proprietary code to playback bought/rented movies from eg. Youtube though
- butz 5y agoAgree, google done got us good with widevine DRM. Time for another go at standardized open-source DRM implementation?
- krapp 5y agoThe average user doesn't want a web browser with only basic features, they want all of the web to work, all of the time (excepting maybe ads.)
- butz 5y agoThere are always extensions, that currently follow standards and work on all major browsers with minimal changes.
- sithlord 5y agoNot suprising, I have to assume it was microsoft who pushed 343 to push out the giant dark pattern that is Halo Infinate.
- aliswe 5y agowho, what?
- deergomoo 5y agoI cannot stand how everything with internet access is just becoming a vehicle to shove ads down everyone’s throat. This web browser wants to sell me credit deals. My expensive TV has banner ads in the menus (well, it did until I blocked about two dozen domains). An increasing amount of apps are sending “offers” I never requested via push notifications on my phone. My belongings are not a fucking corporate billboard.
- rightbyte 5y ago> My expensive TV has banner ads in the menus (well, it did until I blocked about two dozen domains) Just wait until Google has pushed everyone into encrypted DNS like they did with HTTP ...
- post-it 5y agoThe TV will still need to update its certificates and work on corporate wifi, so there should always be a way to feed it your own certificate and MITM DNS. I think, anyway.
- krisrm 5y agoYou'll have to pay extra for the "enterprise" TV ;)
- Spivak 5y agoI mean fine, I’ll gladly pay more just give me the option.
- freeflight 5y agoYou just fell for the con!
- Spivak 5y agoBut why is it a con though? Marginal cost of TV is $600, amortized business cost for projected sales is $400, expected average lifetime revenue from user data and ads is $60 ($15/"user"/yr for 5 years which is damn good for an ad network), throw in a 6.3% profit margin and we get TV priced at $999.99. Throw away the ads and user data collection and up the profit to 10% to make it worth their while (since someone willing to pay more is on average worth more to advertisers and so decreases the value of their network) and we get a TV priced at $1099.99. This seems totally fair to me.
- ttsalami 5y agoI really believe right now that Microsoft's Windows/Edge teams are following the gaming industry's way of "Let ordinary people be outraged, the whales will feed us"
- busymom0 5y agoI recently got me a windows laptop for media consumption purposes (I still have my Mac mini for primary work). The very first thing I noticed was the constant push for edge browser everywhere. Even on the Lock Screen of Windows, I saw 3 places asking to try Edge browser. Had to go to settings and disable the ads for edge: https://www.groovypost.com/howto/turn-off-windows-10-lock-screen-ads/ https://www.groovypost.com/howto/turn-off-windows-10-lock-sc...
- muzani 5y agoI don't understand the controversy. Google and Apple make lots of money from their app stores. MS offers loans at a $4 fee and everyone loses their mind. Would everyone be as hostile if say, Opera did the same thing?
- firebaze 5y agoSuppose your fridge would offer to order from a fast-food "restaurant" near you everytime you get close to it. Sounds illogical, unexpected and puzzling?
- muzani 5y agoThat's nothing like it at all. It's more like the fridge offering to buy groceries for a flat rate of $4 after delivery costs.
- Rapzid 5y agoKinda tacky. What's been going on over at MS the past few years? Lot of short sighted decisions being made, then rolled back, that are damaging their reputation and seem counter to the brand Satya started building.
- theHIDninja 5y agoHey, Microsoft, it's not your fucking job to serve ads. It is not your fucking job to be the middleman for payment transactions. Your only job is to provide an operating system.
- MattGaiser 5y agoThe problem is we don’t pay for the operating system anymore.
- iypx 5y agoAren't retailers still paying for licenses? Or there's some easier way to get keys as a business? I noticed even shops that sell refurbished computers will shove Windows 10 into them, I always thought it was around 10-20 bucks for a license, so that later they can charge us 90-100 for a computer with windows...
- encryptluks2 5y agoYou can always just use vlmcsd
- freeflight 5y agoI do, and then MS just keeps revoking my licenses because I change hardware, real fun user experience all this.
- charcircuit 5y agoIt's not your job to tell Microsoft what they can and can't work on or what services they provide.
- msie 5y agoJust recently I was setting up Windows 10. One of the first things it asked for is an email account or you can create one. Ugh. I remember the days when you didn't need an email account to setup an OS. Also Windows 10 has many nagging notifications if you are not logged in to Microsoft services.
- TedShiller 5y agoWhy are people so angry? Easy solution: don’t use windows
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y agoWew! This looks so cheap and scammy. It's like an ActiveX spyware from 2003, but built right into the browser.
- Animats 5y agoIf you get behind in the payments, does Microsoft turn your computer off?
- blackbrokkoli 5y agoAll these discussion about APR and napkin math and installment is missing the point a bit, in my opinion. My problem is not even that Edge collects unnecessary and allows what could be called a most intrusive third party add into its browser per se, I am mostly amazed by how incredibly tacky this looks and feels from Microsoft's side. Like, imagine buying a Lexus and discovering they are advertisements for a cheap off-brand energy drink plastered on the interior. I find it straight up incredible that Microsoft somewhat achieved to overcome the meme status of its browser after what, fifteen years, and now this? Passing on the the crown of being the lowest common denominator tech joke to someone else, gaining a little bit of market share and even one or two positive reviews in respected outlets...only to risk it all in this weird move of behaving like a shady car salesman for what must a be a double digit million deal at most, right?
- mortenjorck 5y agoYeah, this really is the most unbelievable part. Edge is a huge halo-effect opportunity for Microsoft to improve its brand among non-customers, and it looks like they’ve been seriously pursuing it with some of the interesting things they’ve been doing with dev tools. To throw all this away for a few bucks in affiliate commissions is jaw-droppingly short-sighted.
- daveray120 5y agoMy name is Sarah Andrews from USA and I am a single parent. Mrs Debra is a very good woman and has helped me cleared all my debts as a single parent. Are you looking for a personal loan ? Are you looking for a business loan ? Are you looking for a payday or bad credit loan ? If you need any kind of loan or financial help you can easily get help from Mr Lavington . Mrs Debra offers loan at interest rate of 2% without any credit check . Even if you have a very low credit score you can get a loan from Mrs Debra Contact Mrs Debra Sabina via debrasabina1961@gmail.com or Text/WhatsApp +19784003014 regards and welcome .
- SMAAART 5y ago"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people"
- imchillyb 5y agoThis is the epitome of Software as a Service. SaaS is a race to the bottom every country and every corporation has been fighting so hard for. Eventually it'll all be bottom.
- wtfrmyinitials 5y ago“User-Agent”
- morpheuskafka 5y agoIt seems like the linked Microsoft announcement was hardly proofread at all, which seems surprising. I'd have guessed anything remotely related to finance would be thoroughly reviewed by the legal team prior to going live: > Applying BNPL could take time, you need to sign in with zip every single time. With BNPL in Edge, you can simply link your Microsoft account with your zip account with one click and then bypass sign in from Zip side. It can expedite the application process for you.
- Tempest1981 5y agoWhat next? Windows Explorer (or Teams) will be pushing me to buy an extended warranty for my car... in a friendly Cortana voice. "Your Internet also appears to be slow. I can switch you to Comcast... say 'Yes' to begin" Our dystopian future is here.
- tacocataco 5y agoEverything is finance now. Why not? That's where the real money/power/influence lives.
- siproprio 5y agoYeah, I briefly fell for msft not being evil. Not only edge is not free because I paid for windows, it's also slower and much more user hostile and mindfulness hostile than Google. Say what you want about Chrome engineers, but they wouldn't go to this low.
- unixhero 5y agoGreat the pendulum had swung in favour of Edge in corporate. Now it will certainly swing back to Chrome. This is a moronic decision by the corporate overlords at MS.
- wilt 5y agoOnly way to stop this is to make it so they make no money from doing it and also make it really uncomfortable for their execs. If they feel the blow back personally they will stop doing it.
- hulitu 5y agoAfter "ship now, fix later" they are evolving to ‘buy now, pay later’.