It's a bit baffling to me that people are talking about Microsoft "losing their way" as if they ever operated differently. They have always been user-hostile if it increased next quarter's outlook. There's a clear continuing thread from the Halloween files in the 90s via antitrust probes in the 00s, the handling of Skype and Teams in the 10s, and now Copilot -- and that's ignoring all the mishandling on the business side of things (e.g. forcing Dynamics cloud migrations, Power Platform in a permanent state of unworthiness, the customary rug pulling via user license changes, constantly renaming products).

Microsoft being good to their customers is the anomaly, not the other way around.

Microsoft has indeed lost their way with Microsoft, but not in the sense that they became evil ghouls. They've always been evil ghouls. No, what's happened is that Windows became a minor part of Microsoft's profits. The whole company is not focused on Windows the way Apple is with the iPhone.

The higher ups no longer care about Windows as a product itself. They only care about Windows as a storefront to their other efforts (OneDrive, Office, Copilot, etc.)

I mean, at least their software used to be pretty good. The Windows NT kernel is arguably a better design than Linux. I complain about NTFS now, but thirty years ago it was better than most other filesystems. And Windows NT at least didn't jam a billion ads down your throat.

Granted, MS has always been a pretty evil anti-competitive company, so I'm not trying to sanitize them much here.

I'd read "Microsoft lost their way" as a description of how the speaker's worldview has changed, as they've gained experience and perspective.

Microsoft is often good to their customers. Generally in situations where badness has a poor RoI, or they're trying to lure you deeper into their clutches.