| ▲ | wewewedxfgdf 3 hours 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. |
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| ▲ | spankibalt 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| As much as I like many Windows versions, the corporate idiocy of the company behind the OS is indeed something else. |
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| ▲ | cedws 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I 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 an hour ago | parent [-] | | Microsoft 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.... | | |
| ▲ | cedws 31 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | True. I meant to say that it feels like the people who know what's going on have long departed and it's junior web developers left to pick up the pieces. | |
| ▲ | xmddmx an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | You 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. | | |
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| ▲ | neilv 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Never ascribe to stupidity, that which has been proven to be malice. | | |
| ▲ | grugagag 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah, they delivered whatever they delivered on purpose. Sometimes I imagine MS is playingn Lemmings with their users to reach their corporate goals. | |
| ▲ | Ferret7446 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I 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 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Hanlon’s razor applies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor | |
| ▲ | yndoendo an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I 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 an hour ago | parent [-] | | Or 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. |
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| ▲ | alex1138 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This 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 | | |
| ▲ | userbinator 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If 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. | |
| ▲ | yoyohello13 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I 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 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The only thing worse than work-from-office is mandatory work-on-windows. | | | |
| ▲ | ethagnawl 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | As 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. |
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| ▲ | gerdesj 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "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. |
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| ▲ | dismalaf 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 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. 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. | | |
| ▲ | Y_Y 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Consumers need to remember how to wield a pitchfork | | |
| ▲ | xeonmc 43 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | That’s a funny way of spelling “guillotine”. | |
| ▲ | MattGaiser 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The challenge is that consumers in the case of Windows don’t generally choose Windows. Someone else chooses it for them. |
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| ▲ | gruez 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >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 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Hmm, 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 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | >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? | | |
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| ▲ | dismalaf 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Enterprises 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. |
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| ▲ | mips_avatar an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The employees inside really wanted to build this. The company decided not to. |
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| ▲ | blastersyndrome an hour ago | parent [-] | | I'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. |
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| ▲ | ribosometronome 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| >free for basic usage, paid for commercial usage And lose all the OEM license money? |
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| ▲ | wlesieutre an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Do they make more money from OEM licenses, or from bombarding Windows users with OneDrive and Copilot 365 advertisements? | |
| ▲ | al_borland 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Windows 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. | |
| ▲ | relativeadv 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | won't someone think of the shareholders? |
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| ▲ | crm9125 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Luckily Linux exists. |
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| ▲ | alex1138 an hour ago | parent [-] | | I'll add, with no disrespect intended to BSD, because they're serious OSes, but GPL is also a really good thing to have |
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| ▲ | bigfatkitten 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It 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. |
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| ▲ | ajsnigrutin 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| When 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. |
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| ▲ | userbinator 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | When 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 an hour ago | parent [-] | | I 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! |
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| ▲ | dyauspitr an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It’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. |
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| ▲ | jccx70 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| lol, what's your point really? alternatives exists since very long time. |
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| ▲ | 29athrowaway 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| That would require empathy. |
