That did help the make the premise more believable, the problem occurs when a low cost laptop of $500 and lasting 5 years would result in $500 for the cost of t

That did help the make the premise more believable, the problem occurs when a low cost laptop of $500 and lasting 5 years would result in $500 for the cost of the operating system (5 * $100), instead of the OEM cost $20-60 once off. It's difficult to market segment along this axis because the way the low end of the market lowers the cost is by stretching out the upgrades. It's hard to segment on the p.a. cost basis because it causes the people paying the higher rates rightfully want to know why - and there really isn't a good answer beyond they have more money. Allowing forever upgrades without a subscription would mean that Microsoft would basically be giving up most of the money on the low end market segment, which would have been a nice principled thing to do. There are strategic reasons why this could be a good thing to do but it's hard to say no to giant piles of money even if you already have giant piles of money so we were certain Microsoft wasn't going to stick to this principle.