8 ms·
Microsoft could have made Windows: able to run on any hardware free for basic usage, paid for commercial usage lightweight, simple, stripped of all cruft and
by wewewedxfgdf 10mo ago
Microsoft could have made Windows:
able to run on any hardware
free for basic usage, paid for commercial usage
lightweight, simple, stripped of all cruft and extras
consistent in it's UI and cleaned up from 40 years of inconsistencies
But they didn't - so people are looking for alternatives.
- spankibalt 10mo agoAs much as I like many Windows versions, the corporate idiocy of the company behind the OS is indeed something else.
- alex1138 10mo agoThis is true with a lot of companies. If you made people actually use their own product (do they?!) maybe they'd think twice before doing boneheaded things Then again, I get the biological desire to put food on the table for one's family and therein lies the problem
- yoyohello13 10mo agoI remember I was at a Python conference some years ago and every Microsoft dev I saw had a MacBook. So no, I don’t think they use their own product internally.
- dmix 10mo agoThe only thing worse than work-from-office is mandatory work-on-windows.
- jiggawatts 10mo agoIf only there was something Microsoft’s developers could do about that…
- ethagnawl 10mo agoAs an aside, I used to know a number of MS heads who ran Windows on Mac Intel machines because they preferred the hardware (~2014 MBP) and/or because they ostensibly worked at Mac shops and were handed one upon entry.
- badc0ffee 10mo agoIf I still had to use Windows I'd want a laptop with home/end/ins/del/pgup/pgdn keys, and alt/win in the right place.
- eviks 10mo agoThe last issue is solvd in software, the first one has a good workaround in software
- matwood 10mo agoLong ago at this point when my job required windows, the best experience for me was running it in a VM on a MBP. Actually worked quite well since it was easy stop/start windows and segmented work off on its own.
- stuaxo 10mo agoUsing Windows as a python dev is a complete pain.
- gerdesj 10mo ago"I get the biological desire to put food on the table for one's family and therein lies the problem" They don't make money (put bread on the table) by selling Windows any more. That is soooo 2000s. Income is from data mining and from subscriptions to cloudy offerings that are mostly MVP (Minimum Viable Product). Oh, and hyping their perceived value to the point that the term "meme stock" is no longer just a joke.
- userbinator 10mo agoIf you made people actually use their own product (do they?!) Yes, they do. Unfortunately even MS employees are powerless to do anything about the crap that gets shoved into Windows by other employees working at the company, and the ones who complain about it are quietly shown the door or have already left of their own will, leaving only those who are completely apathetic or... Then again, I get the biological desire to put food on the table for one's family and therein lies the problem Exactly. That and the desire to remain in the country --- part of the reason why companies like H-1Bs so much is because they are going to be far more docile and less willing to resist doing things they feel are wrong.
- dismalaf 10mo agoWith the way the economy is going (some call it K-shaped) it's more profitable to squeeze as hard as you can and extract as much as possible out of whales versus trying to have mass market appeal. Azure, Office and Copilot will sustain them. Nvidia is doing something similar where they're just extracting as much as possible out of AI companies and not caring one bit about consumers.
- gruez 10mo ago>With the way the economy is going (some call it K-shaped) it's more profitable to squeeze as hard as you can and extract as much as possible out of whales versus trying to have mass market appeal How does whatever microsoft is doing to windows line up with that?
- ffsm8 10mo agoHmm, it does line up with that from my perspective too. It's just a different way to say "you're the product, not the customer" if you look at the statement from a neutral perspective - the whale being the actual customer, who changes all the time depending on what Microsoft MBAs think might have the highest potential value they can extract.
- gruez 10mo ago>the whale being the actual customer, who changes all the time depending on what Microsoft MBAs think might have the highest potential value they can extract. Who's the "whale" in this context? Windows users who subscribe to copilot? Enterprise? Advertisers?
- dismalaf 10mo agoEnterprise.
- dismalaf 10mo agoEnterprises are the whales. Microsoft sells user management, Office, Copilot, Outlook, etc... all bundled together for more per seat per year than a consumer will spend or generate in the whole lifecycle of their device. Nevermind Azure. So consumers are mostly ignored, except as a testbed to shove AI and ads.
- neilv 10mo agoNever ascribe to stupidity, that which has been proven to be malice.
- grugagag 10mo agoYeah, they delivered whatever they delivered on purpose. Sometimes I imagine MS is playingn Lemmings with their users to reach their corporate goals.
- Ferret7446 10mo agoI doubt the various shitty parts of Windows (not the forced AI/whatever) is due to malice, unless you mean employees maliciously trying to destroy the company.
- stuartd 10mo agoHanlon’s razor applies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
- yndoendo 10mo agoI would say the malice is from management, investors, and product leads. Developers just do what they are told. Microsoft is choosing enshitification versus quality. CEO needs to pump that stock and having enterprise locked into without alternatives helps them. I grew up with Microsoft and now you have to pay me to use their products. I would never choose their OS for product hosting. Even their embedded / IoT is trying to force a Microsoft account and push against local user.
- aunty_helen 10mo agoOr are they trying to move users onto other platforms, more modern platforms that users are more comfortable paying for. Desktops existed before punching in your credit card numbers was a common thing, that history is hard to shrug. Xbox for gamers, mobile for everyone else and business editions of windows for the enterprise.
- 10mo ago
- cedws 10mo agoI get the impression that a lot of the old guard are long gone from the Windows team or have no influence. Raymond Chen is still around but not sure how much he actually works on Windows day to day.
- ecshafer 10mo agoMicrosoft was founded in 1975. 1981 was the first DOS release. 1985 was the first release of Windows. 40 years working on windows is a long time, I would be surprised if anyone for the original team is left at this point. Even someone joining out of college in 2000 is now 25 years in, is 57, and could feasibly be retiring....
- xmddmx 10mo agoYou mean 1990. Someone graduating college in 1990 would have been about 21. That was 35 years ago, so they would be about 56 in 2025. Math is hard.
- GenerocUsername 10mo agoCmon man, it's a comment not a research paper. Off by one isn't worth a follow up snark
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- sokoloff 10mo agoTheir main point was it is off by 10; then they introduced an additional confusing question of “is it off by 10, 11, or 12?”
- cwnyth 10mo agoOff by 10+1. Someone who graduated college in 2000 = 25 + 22 (4 years of college from 18) = 47, not 57, and not anywhere close to the retirement age. It might be pedantry, but the original comment should have said 1990, not 2000.
- 29athrowaway 10mo agoThat would require empathy.
- bigfatkitten 10mo agoIt could be a nice OS, if Microsoft didn’t go out of their way to make it awful. I run Active Directory at home, for various reasons. I’ve got Group Policy in a good enough shape now that I’m not terribly troubled by Microsoft’s enshittification but it took substantial effort to get there, and it requires some work to maintain.
- ribosometronome 10mo ago>free for basic usage, paid for commercial usage And lose all the OEM license money?
- relativeadv 10mo agowon't someone think of the shareholders?
- al_borland 10mo agoWindows is now less than 10% of their revenue, last I saw. I think Windows is more valuable to keep people in the Microsoft ecosystem, than as a source of direct revenue.
- wlesieutre 10mo agoDo they make more money from OEM licenses, or from bombarding Windows users with OneDrive and Copilot 365 advertisements?
- ProllyInfamous 10mo agoWhat if it's actually the AI-derived "user profile," sold to advertisers/govts, after their mandatory bot scans all your drive. Just hypothetically... of course they're not actually doing this? ---- Anywho, doesn't matter cause my Xeon went from Windows 10 to Linux, this year. Still rocking a Win7Pro Core2Duo (as my second favorite machine).
- guidedlight 10mo agoPerhaps Microsoft plans to bundle Windows into its "Microsoft 365" subscription for the consumer market.
- ajsnigrutin 10mo agoWhen did any manager get promoted for keeping software stable? Just look at google and their chat softwares... you either make something new, or someone else does and you're left behind... be it ads in their start menu, spyware "AI", or paid solitaire.
- userbinator 10mo agoWhen did any manager get promoted for keeping software stable? A few industries reward that. Telcos and other parts of critical infrastructure come to mind.
- testing22321 10mo agoI worked for a telco for four years. It was horrifically stupid and rewarded the dumbest possible outcomes. Is goal is increase revenue! Create project to roll out fibre to a new rural community. Sign up all 40 houses in that community at $100 a month. Project cost $10 mil. Bonuses and promotions for increased revenue!
- ocdtrekkie 10mo agoThat pays for itself in 20 years and most of those customers won't have better choices in the next 50. The core of that infrastructure will probably oitlive most people on the team. Sounds like a good long term stable business.
- imtringued 10mo ago20*12*40*100=960000 They're $9.04 million in the red.
- ocdtrekkie 10mo agoHah, I missed a zero. ;D
- oivey 10mo ago
- crm9125 10mo agoLuckily Linux exists.
- alex1138 10mo agoI'll add, with no disrespect intended to BSD, because they're serious OSes, but GPL is also a really good thing to have
- oska 10mo agoYes, the GPL (by design) is what kept Linux from being embraced, extended and then extinguished
- userbinator 10mo agoOnly the last part, as there have already been plenty of corporate interests infecting Linux.
- jccx70 10mo agolol, what's your point really? alternatives exists since very long time.
- dyauspitr 10mo agoIt’s not about giving you a clean experience, it’s about setting you up as a constant cash cow hooked into and paying for all their services. I hate adobes current business model and for that matter fusion360 as well. It’s all internet required bullshit but it’s making them tons of money and there are no viable alternatives.
- mips_avatar 10mo agoThe employees inside really wanted to build this. The company decided not to.
- blastersyndrome 10mo agoI'm not so sure about that. If Microsoft actually removed all the cruft, then they would need around 5% of the employees currently working on it. They'd all be unemployed.
- mips_avatar 10mo agoYou’d be surprised how many legitimately want to improve the product. This idea that we’re powerless to disobey our incentives is so reductive.
- slowmovintarget 10mo agoThat's an OS for the users. Windows is an OS for the people who use the users.
- userbinator 10mo agoMicrosoft's slogan in the 90s was "where do you want to go today?" Now, it should be "where do we want you to go today?"
- dxdm 10mo agoThanks for the 90s nostalgia. I just realized how much I miss these days and their optimism.
- danillonunes 10mo agoMake it sound more empowering: "Let Copilot decide where you want to go today!"
- zahlman 10mo ago> consistent in it's UI and cleaned up from 40 years of inconsistencies ... While also maintaining their famous backwards compatibility?
- cookiengineer 10mo agoHonestly Windows 7 was the best OS they ever built. It just went downwards from there, and they abandoned it essentially. I don't understand what's going on at Microsoft, but they leave huge stacks of money on the table. LTSC versions weren't "popular", they were the least worst option for a lot of industries. And now they kinda completely ignored all customer feedback.
- hshdhdhj4444 10mo agoXP SP2 was pretty good too. As was Windows NT & 2000 for their time.
- hggjkggijg 10mo agoWin2k is where it was at. It was also my last windows os ....
- mike_d 10mo agoMicrosoft managed to make every other release of Windows good. 95 good, NT 4 bad, 98 good, 98 SE bad, 2000 good, Me bad, XP good, Vista bad, 7 good... The plan with Windows 10 was to light their desktop market share on fire in the hopes they could see iPads in the distance and try to chase them. Windows 11 was codenamed "give your toxic ex a second chance."
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- gnopgnip 10mo agoThey basically did that though for basic usage. Not activating windows only stops you from changing the background and removes the watermark for activation.
- antonkochubey 10mo agoIt’s also illegal in most countries
- userbinator 10mo agoSo is exceeding the speed limit...