4 ms·

It really is a testament to the power of the Windows monopoly that MS can continously make the product worse without losing a meaningful amount of customers. W

It really is a testament to the power of the Windows monopoly that MS can continously make the product worse without losing a meaningful amount of customers. Windows is more than ripe for disruption, but unfortunate the monopoly is enforced by drivers, productivity software, habit, gaming etc. It's depressing to think about how much better our computers could have worked if there had been real competition in the market of PC OSs for the last 25 years.

AlexandrB 4y ago
The antitrust action against Microsoft in the 90s didn't go far enough and should have split off the OS from the rest of the business.
gred 4y ago
It's all the little things. I just set up my first Linux / Windows dual boot laptop to ease my way out of Windows, but my day 1 experience with Linux involved disabling IPv6 so that I could get onto WiFi + internet, disabling the HiDPI daemon so that my screen resolution changes would persist across restarts, and wearing headphones most of the day because the laptop's external speakers don't work out of the box. The Apple-like "everything-included" model might work well for desktop Linux, but the Windows-like "BYO everything" model is still quite rough... and I don't see that changing because it's mostly hardware / driver-related, and there's a constant churn of new devices, chips and accessories.
jiggawatts 4y ago
It’s a classic tragedy of the commons: individual managers at Microsoft can abuse the reputation of their org for personal gain. All of these moves I call “KPI features”, as in: “I have to make this worse to meet my personal bonus criteria, sorry.” There are so many dark patterns in Windows now because of this. Nobody at Microsoft cares about the products at all any more.
rchaud 4y ago
Windows has already been disrupted: first by the web, and second by mobile. The reason Windows continues to dominate desktop is because Apple isn't a competitor, more like an off-ramp for those that can afford better. And Linux on Intel/AMD is finicky on most OEM machines except for a couple of machines that are 10 years old.
- jeppester 4y ago
  Linux is finicky mostly because there's been no incentive to support non-Windows OSes (apart from macOS) for decades.

AlexandrB 4y ago

The antitrust action against Microsoft in the 90s didn't go far enough and should have split off the OS from the rest of the business.

gred 4y ago

It's all the little things. I just set up my first Linux / Windows dual boot laptop to ease my way out of Windows, but my day 1 experience with Linux involved disabling IPv6 so that I could get onto WiFi + internet, disabling the HiDPI daemon so that my screen resolution changes would persist across restarts, and wearing headphones most of the day because the laptop's external speakers don't work out of the box. The Apple-like "everything-included" model might work well for desktop Linux, but the Windows-like "BYO everything" model is still quite rough... and I don't see that changing because it's mostly hardware / driver-related, and there's a constant churn of new devices, chips and accessories.

jiggawatts 4y ago

It’s a classic tragedy of the commons: individual managers at Microsoft can abuse the reputation of their org for personal gain. All of these moves I call “KPI features”, as in: “I have to make this worse to meet my personal bonus criteria, sorry.” There are so many dark patterns in Windows now because of this. Nobody at Microsoft cares about the products at all any more.

rchaud 4y ago

Windows has already been disrupted: first by the web, and second by mobile. The reason Windows continues to dominate desktop is because Apple isn't a competitor, more like an off-ramp for those that can afford better. And Linux on Intel/AMD is finicky on most OEM machines except for a couple of machines that are 10 years old.

jeppester 4y ago
Linux is finicky mostly because there's been no incentive to support non-Windows OSes (apart from macOS) for decades.