In Windows 10, Ad-Free Solitaire Will Cost You $10 -- Every Year

Wired UK reports that the pre-installed Solitaire on Windows 10 capitalizes on the long-cultivated addiction that some users have to the game with an interesting bargain: rather than being an ordinary included application like it used to be, what may be the world's most pervasive on-screen office time-sink of a game now comes with ads, unless a user wants to pay (by the month, or by the year) to remove those ads. Notes the linked piece: "To be entirely fair, this is the same as on the Windows 8 version, which wasn't installed by default but could be downloaded from the Windows Store."

At $1.49/month or $10/year, this might be enough to drive some people who otherwise would not to check out some of the free, open-source games out there; PySolitaire is one of many in this incomplete list.

Comments

I can't bring myself to care

[rsilvergun]

I've had Win 7 for years and never once started up solitaire. I've got Steam yah know. And if you're going to goof off at work we've all got pocket computers as cellphones now :)

Re:They're going to be charging money for the OS s

[Anonymous Coward]

Android itself doesn't track you and you have many options as to which version of Android you want. Gapps isn't a necessity in Android, you only need it if you want to run Google's crap.

My phone runs a custom AOSP based build of Android, without gapps, and it works just great. I use F-Droid and Amazon for my apps.

but someone will pay...

[Lead Butthead]

OS will be free, but IPv4 stack is licensed separately. Oh, and IPv6 is yet another separate distinct license. And you want share out your files and printer on your windows box to other computers/"smart" appliance on your lan? that's another distinct license. You want your games to work? Direct3D is a separate license too.

I predict Win10 will be the most profitable OS for MS, ever.