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> I think the only way this gets better for consumers is if customer response more often insisted further roll backs than just the last straw if a company cross
by nicoburns 7mo ago
> I think the only way this gets better for consumers is if customer response more often insisted further roll backs than just the last straw if a company crosses the line.
I think consumers have little power here. Our economic system fundamentally chooses to reward such behaviour. Until we change that, the power will always be with these kind of companies.
Perhaps governments could levy punative fines in such situations. But that seems like a bandaid (and ripe for corruption). Ideally we'd have structural change that prevents this behaviour in the first place. Perhaps worker representation on company boards. Or progressive corporation taxation that more strongly encourages smaller companies and more competition.
- maerF0x0 7mo ago> I think consumers have little power here. Our economic system fundamentally chooses to reward such behaviour. Consumers have the final say, our economic system fundamentally is consumer spending. (Ok, save for most recent year(s) of mag7 AI buildout. But generally that's the case for USA economy). We have to stop taking out our wallet and just accepting things like sheep. (nearly) Every one of the "scrapped" computers could have run a *nix OS and been a middle finger to microsoft.
- thunderfork 7mo agoYou can do that, but the companies and institutions built on Windows will still keep paying whatever it costs for Active Directory, and thus all the bundled software that comes with it. Individual consumer action does not a monopoly break.
- thewebguyd 7mo agoI think consumers largely have stopped taking out their wallet for Microsoft, at least enough of them to cause Microsoft to start walking back a little bit. Nearly 1 billion PCs have stayed on Windows 10, 42% of the global desktop marketshare is still on 10 despite EOL. Linux has been showing consistent growth on the steam hardware survey as well, and time will tell but I have a feeling the MacBook Neo is going to put another nail in Microsoft's consumer coffin. The problem for us is that's such a tiny margin of Microsoft's customer base. They aren't a consumer company anymore. For Microsoft to feel the pain, we need the big legacy enterprises to start ripping out Windows (and by extension, rip out Windows Server, Azure, M365). Us here on HN are in a unique position to help, with many of us having influence on or even the authority to make technical decisions for the companies we work for. Its not enough to stop buying Microsoft at home, we all need to stop buying Microsoft at work.
- FuriouslyAdrift 7mo agoWindows OS is just an onramp for their cloud services. That's their focus, now.
- toast0 7mo ago> I think consumers largely have stopped taking out their wallet for Microsoft, at least enough of them to cause Microsoft to start walking back a little bit. Microsoft has largely stopped asking consumers for money. The last paid upgrade was Windows 8, IIRC. Since then, Microsoft wants consumers to upgrade, so it's free, with full screen prompts at login, and sometimes the 'no thanks' button just does it anyway. Microsoft sells consumer OSes to OEMs. I haven't been looking, but I assume they don't allow OEMs to install Windows 10 Home anymore; and maybe not even Windows 10 Pro. So when consumers buy a new PC, they're getting Windows 11. The only Linux option at most stores is Chrome OS, which Google is shutting down, and is just a browser for most users (it's a useful product! a lot of users just need a browser; but it's not a platform of empowerment)
- tosti 7mo agoThe past: Nobody got fired for buying IBM. The present: Nobody got fired for buying Microslop.
- iugtmkbdfil834 7mo ago<< Us here on HN are in a unique position to help, with many of us having influence on or even the authority to make technical decisions for the companies we work for. Its not enough to stop buying Microsoft at home, we all need to stop buying Microsoft at work. I think that is the hard part. I know the options exist, but I would hate to be executive who proposes that kind of rollout along with training necessary for it. I want your position to be expected position, but I can immediately see corporate response.
- matthewfcarlson 7mo agoIt seems like another tragedy of the commons. Consumers ultimately have the final say in climate impacts by above companies. That isn’t to say consumers are guilt free, but the power of an individual is pretty small
- nicoburns 7mo ago> Consumers have the final say, our economic system fundamentally is consumer spending. Only if consumers have viable alternatives to choose from. If they don't then what are they supposed to do?
- maerF0x0 7mo ago*nix is not a viable option? That's news to me. I agree it's not as easy as pre-installed, but it definitely is viable.
- xp84 7mo agoSort of related, I think this is why big tech loves “free, ad-supported” so much. Using Google search or YouTube or ChatGPT or Fortnite doesn’t seem like an action that is “supporting a company.” When none of the money comes from your pocket, you don’t really feel like you’re making an important choice to patronize one business or another.
- generic92034 7mo agoBut the money is coming out of our pockets. The costs of the ads are added to product prices, which everyone is paying.
- tantalor 7mo ago> consumers have little power here Don't buy their products, and tell your friends
- sayYayToLife 7mo agoI am only 1 person. FAAMG have reputation management teams/marketing teams that are paid to lie all day.
- AdamN 7mo agoBy friends we mean IT leadership in organizations which really needs to be making the case for MacOS, Linux, ChromeOS, or whatever instead of (but more likely in addition to) Windows.
- abustamam 7mo agoYeah exactly. But I don't think my local state university, my wife's accounting firm, or my clients are going to ever switch from Windows, no matter how user hostile it becomes. One could dream.
- aaronmdjones 7mo agoWhen I went to university 17 years ago, all of the computers (except the Macs) had dual-boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.04. I'll give you five guesses which OS I never booted into.
- ConceptJunkie 7mo agoThat's a bit of a trick question, because if you'd booted into Windows, it would have eventually broken the dual-boot.
- 2postsperday 7mo ago[dead]
- 7mo ago
- deaux 7mo agoNone of those. All we need is enforcing laws that are already on the books. Antitrust laws. Break up big tech.
- pixl97 7mo agoWhich requires voting in politicians that would do that. Of course we're much more likely to elect politicians that get the support of billionaires in general so this shit ain't never happ'ning
- xp84 7mo agoIdk. Our antitrust laws present a high burden of proof and so much subjectivity. The question “Are customers really being hurt?” has to be argued in court (and then argued on appeal at like 3 levels). I think it harms our whole market system, and arguably even harms the capitalist system, to have players with so much power, and the antitrust laws are focused narrowly on proving specific harm mainly in the area of pricing, which isn’t the whole picture. Too many markets are utterly dominated by one or two big players. I know it’s a tricky problem because market share is hard to define (Does Amazon have 80% share of e-commerce? Or 30% share of all retail?) but I think we would be better off if there were a more aggressive set of rules about anti-competitive behavior that automatically applied to these huge firms, which didn’t rely so much on subjective judgment.
- surajrmal 7mo agoAnti trust laws do not generally apply to these situations. The government has had an appetite for antitrust, but the cases are far from a slam dunk. We need modern laws for modern problems.
- cratermoon 7mo agoThose laws used to apply, until the courts adopted Robert Bork's "consumer welfare standard" in the 80s, under Reaganism. Analyzed well here: https://yalelawjournal.org/pdf/e.710.Khan.805_zuvfyyeh.pdf https://yalelawjournal.org/pdf/e.710.Khan.805_zuvfyyeh.pdf
- ferongr 7mo ago
- KetoManx64 7mo agoThe reason we are in such a position is because government contracts and government involvement with companies like Microsoft Amazon. They don't have to care about consumers when they have multi billion dollar Gov contracts.
- rmah 7mo ago"Our economic system fundamentally chooses to reward such behavior". This is true, but what people seem to fail to grasp is that rewarding such behavior == buying the product. If people simply didn't buy it, they wouldn't do it. It's really that simple. It may be hard to not buy, of course. The alternatives may be worse, there may be downsides to not buying, etc. But nothing else will really be effective.
- nicoburns 7mo agoSure, but there's a power disparity here. I think the clearest example is smart TVs where there have been examples of consumers buying a TV, and then having ads retroactively added to the product a year later. There's not much a consumer could to avoid that. It's our regulatory environment allowing that.
- j_w 7mo agoYou don't need a TV. If there are only smart TVs then simply don't purchase one. Most consumers are unwilling to take an option that they perceive as inconveniencing them more than getting screwed by the company inconveniences them.
- LtWorf 7mo agoGo to a shop and try to find a non smart tv.
- kortilla 7mo ago“You don’t need a TV”
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- hnlmorg 7mo agoTelling people to just go without a TV is a little more than a “perceived” inconvenience. The reality is that companies know they can get away with crap because they all get away with crap. And because they all do it, consumers are powerless. This is why regulation isn’t a bad the thing that many HNers seem to recoil at. The real problem with regulation is when it’s defined by lobbyists rather than consumer groups. But even then, it’s really no different to the status quo where businesses are never held accountable.
- observationist 7mo agoI'd love if everyone switched to Linux and the walled gardens just died, but the most realistic outcome would be Microsoft and Apple having to up their game and improve their respective products. Right now they're driving hellbent for leather into OSaaS monthly computer subscriptions, eliminating use agency to the greatest degree possible, and exploiting every possible intrusion and usurpation of consumer privacy, vacuuming up every last bit of data and monetizing it to the greatest degree possible, without any concurrent return in value to the consumer. The only way that stops is by having enough people leave that they change their behavior, and it's not sufficient to switch to the competition that is operating under the same perverted incentives under the same system with the same failure modes. No Windows, no Mac, no Chromebooks, no enshittified corporate quagmire of awfulness and despair. The solution is simple - use Linux. Set your family up with Linux. It's the year of the Linux desktop; it's never been easier or better, and it's never been more important to make the leap.
- linkregister 7mo agoMac OS comes with the purchase of the hardware. For mobile and tablets, yes, there is a strict walled garden. But I've been programming on Mac OS for longer than the age of this HN account, and even longer on Linux. In practice there's not much beyond the window manager and containerization that are impractical on Mac for every day programming compared to mainstream Linux distros. The family computer is set up to boot into Ubuntu; booting into Windows 11 is the exception (games, iTunes).
- observationist 7mo agoNot giving Apple money means no Apple hardware. I've gone decades doing it and haven't regretted it once. I've turned down work because it involved having to work with Apple devices and software. It's really, really easy to not give them money. Pirate everything if you have to, but stop feeding the companies that are making everything awful.
- mlsu 7mo agoThe best solution would be competition. But go ahead try to compete, you will be crushed.
- halJordan 7mo agoYour are suffering from a fundamental misidentification. There are only people. There is no system doing anything. There are people doing things. Consumers have as much control as they want. When you insist that the people comprising the system have no agency, you're the one perpetuating it