I guess, you mean "price" of the operating system. The amount that a customer pays to Microsoft in order to legally install a copy. The cost per installation is

I guess, you mean "price" of the operating system. The amount that a customer pays to Microsoft in order to legally install a copy. The cost per installation is pretty low for Microsoft. The cost to make an operating system on the other hand is in the billions. It makes sense to get money from those who are willing to pay and to get data (worth money) from those who are not willing to pay (but willing to pirate). It wouldn't create much positive publicity, but the most honest way would be a "pay for privacy" option where you have to pay a monthly sum in order to disable the data collection, profiling, data selling and targeted advertising.