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Microsoft has a funny way of selling us ‘productivity’ with Windows 11. On one side of the screen, they promise us a sleek and smooth user experience that will

Microsoft has a funny way of selling us ‘productivity’ with Windows 11. On one side of the screen, they promise us a sleek and smooth user experience that will make our work easier and faster. On the other side, they bombard us with widgets full of celebrity gossip and sports trivia that have nothing to do with our lives. What’s the point of that? Are they trying to distract us from our work or from their work? Maybe if Windows 11 were free, we could forgive them for their sneaky attempts to get us hooked on Bing. But no, they want us to pay 200 dollars for this dubious privilege. How are we supposed to feel about that? Grateful? Impressed? Satisfied? I don’t think so.

Veen 4y ago
Presumably, the teams who develop the OS do want to give us a smooth user experience and help us to be productive and efficient. But between us and them are other teams tasked with extracting the maximum value from Windows users and increasing engagement with Microsoft's shittier services. The same thing happens in web development. The developers and designers of news sites don't want to create an unusable mess of ads and auto-playing videos, but the business development guys love that shit.
- avnfish 4y ago
  The microsoft org chart comes to mind: https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts
- hkatx 4y ago
  There is a viral clip of Lebron James saying he doesn't pay for spotify premium. If a multi millionaire can justify going through the friction of the free software, you can argue masses feel the same way. An app/service with frictionless UX that requires subscription/fees is just going have a very small percentage of users. A developer/small team may be content with that, but VC funded outfits are advised and need to have a massive growth of user to justify further rounds. So the app/service has to be free with ads/other dark patterns to boost engagement/revenue. (exceptions that come to mind are netflix but even they have an ad tier now)
makeitdouble 4y ago
Recently switch to Windows, and my feeling is the "Pro" moniker in the OS title has as much weight as in "iPhone Pro". Under the hood there's price discrimination on the Hypervisor and other services that regular users wouldn't use, but there seems fundamentally to be no difference in the interface between the two versions of the OS. I'd assume enterprise customers (the real "pros") will have their IT department deal with removing all the crap and adjusting the group policy so the experience is somewhat productive. So Microsoft doesn't have to care at all about "productivity", and is free to bombard users with all the crapware of the worlds as long as there's some remote way to disable it.
- zokier 4y ago
  Enterprises have their own edition which leaves Pro to be just prosumer.
- yanellena 4y ago
  I have Enterprise 11 on a non managed device and I can't really recognise many of the comments here. No news or pre-loaded spam apps. It's actually a pretty good experience.
  - nailer 4y ago
    I have a Microsoft Surface device and I recognise all of them. Literally would pay more (kind of feel like I already have) to avoid advertising. If they sold Surfaces with Enterprise by default I'd be happy.
  - spacechild1 4y ago
    Same for me. I have been using Windows 10 Pro on various laptops and I have never seen any ads or other kinds of bullshit. I always thought that these were only a thing in Windows home editions?
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    Thanks, so it's really their segmentation of the market. I saw the Enterprise version of the Surface when buying mine, but didn't expect the internal OS was also different. The price was pretty stiff, so it looks like I got priced out of the reasonable default experience.
epolanski 4y ago
A win 11 pro license isn't 200$. Also, I've never seen an ad in my win 11 installation, on win 10 it was trivial to remove them from start.
- dagw 4y ago
  A win 11 pro license isn't 200$. A non-OEM Windows pro license bought from a legit reseller is actually quite a bit more than $200, at least here in Europe.
- layer8 4y ago
  Officially it is: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/windows-11-pro/dg7gmgf0d8h4 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/windows-11-pro/dg7gmgf0d8h...
  - Toutouxc 4y ago
    Wow, this link shows $326 for my country. Even more expensive than most legit resellers.

Veen 4y ago

Presumably, the teams who develop the OS do want to give us a smooth user experience and help us to be productive and efficient. But between us and them are other teams tasked with extracting the maximum value from Windows users and increasing engagement with Microsoft's shittier services. The same thing happens in web development. The developers and designers of news sites don't want to create an unusable mess of ads and auto-playing videos, but the business development guys love that shit.

avnfish 4y ago
The microsoft org chart comes to mind: https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts
hkatx 4y ago
There is a viral clip of Lebron James saying he doesn't pay for spotify premium. If a multi millionaire can justify going through the friction of the free software, you can argue masses feel the same way. An app/service with frictionless UX that requires subscription/fees is just going have a very small percentage of users. A developer/small team may be content with that, but VC funded outfits are advised and need to have a massive growth of user to justify further rounds. So the app/service has to be free with ads/other dark patterns to boost engagement/revenue. (exceptions that come to mind are netflix but even they have an ad tier now)

makeitdouble 4y ago

Recently switch to Windows, and my feeling is the "Pro" moniker in the OS title has as much weight as in "iPhone Pro". Under the hood there's price discrimination on the Hypervisor and other services that regular users wouldn't use, but there seems fundamentally to be no difference in the interface between the two versions of the OS. I'd assume enterprise customers (the real "pros") will have their IT department deal with removing all the crap and adjusting the group policy so the experience is somewhat productive. So Microsoft doesn't have to care at all about "productivity", and is free to bombard users with all the crapware of the worlds as long as there's some remote way to disable it.

zokier 4y ago
Enterprises have their own edition which leaves Pro to be just prosumer.
yanellena 4y ago
I have Enterprise 11 on a non managed device and I can't really recognise many of the comments here. No news or pre-loaded spam apps. It's actually a pretty good experience.
- nailer 4y ago
  I have a Microsoft Surface device and I recognise all of them. Literally would pay more (kind of feel like I already have) to avoid advertising. If they sold Surfaces with Enterprise by default I'd be happy.
- spacechild1 4y ago
  Same for me. I have been using Windows 10 Pro on various laptops and I have never seen any ads or other kinds of bullshit. I always thought that these were only a thing in Windows home editions?
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Thanks, so it's really their segmentation of the market. I saw the Enterprise version of the Surface when buying mine, but didn't expect the internal OS was also different. The price was pretty stiff, so it looks like I got priced out of the reasonable default experience.

epolanski 4y ago

A win 11 pro license isn't 200$. Also, I've never seen an ad in my win 11 installation, on win 10 it was trivial to remove them from start.

dagw 4y ago
A win 11 pro license isn't 200$. A non-OEM Windows pro license bought from a legit reseller is actually quite a bit more than $200, at least here in Europe.
layer8 4y ago
Officially it is: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/windows-11-pro/dg7gmgf0d8h4 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/windows-11-pro/dg7gmgf0d8h...
- Toutouxc 4y ago
  Wow, this link shows $326 for my country. Even more expensive than most legit resellers.