Are Microsoft's actions legal, based on EULAs and so on? I'm sure it's all legal but I certainly can't say it's ethical. Now you might respond, what company today is ethical? That's a very good question, but I think if we just let things go and don't demand ethical behavior, we're never going to get it. If we reward unethical behavior with our hard-earned dollars, what are we doing?
That's a great point. Ethical != legal. If you want ethical behavior from others, you have to be willing to enforce that desire somehow. You can't force companies to behave ethically (though you can lobby for laws which implement some ethical behaviors here and there; good luck with that), so your only real choice is to withhold your business from companies which act in a blatantly unethical fashion.
If you're not willing to stop doing business with such companies, then exactly what incentive do they have to change? None. And that really makes it your fault that you're suffering with these unethical actions. That company is offering a product, and if it doesn't meet your ethical standards yet you purchase it anyway, then you're rewarding that behavior and you have no right to complain about their unethical customer treatment, since you've willingly signed up for that very treatment.
I like customization. That's why I use Linux Mint with KDE.
But if you use Windows, then you have no right to complain about MS's software. You've freely chosen it, and you're refusing to abandon it in the face of alternatives.
Maybe I'm just too naive to understand the MBA financial model behind all of this, but it strikes me that had Microsoft consolidated their desktop operating system into a single edition around the time of XP or 7 and stopped trying to use it as a marketing platform they would have a lot more end user good will. Why they're choosing to lose even more good will by force-feeding their marketing platform when alternatives are more prevalent than ever (linux, mac os, saas, cloud, mobile, etc etc etc) is mystifying to me.
WTF? You don't need an MBA to understand this, it's simple. Your talk about "alternatives" is irrelevant. The simple fact is that MS customers will absolutely not abandon the Windows platform, no matter what, so it's entirely in MS's financial interest to exploit that fact to their benefit to the maximum extent.
MS is just slowly tightening the screws to see how much they can get away with, which as we can see is quite a lot. A tiny, tiny number of defections is easily made up for by the new advertising dollars and higher prices.
And "good will"? WhyTF should MS care about that? The only thing that's important is profit. As we're seeing, it doesn't matter how much people get pissed about MS's antics; they're not going to stop using Windows, ever. So MS is correct to milk them.
Didn't Ubuntu put Amazon results in the local search box? I mean its not just MS.
Yes, they did, and that shows why Linux is so much better. (I'll ignore the fact that removing the "Amazon Lens" was rather easy.)
With Linux, when a vendor pulls this shit and loses your trust, it's no problem: you just switch to a competing distro. They're all pretty similar, and very compatible with each other anyway. With Ubuntu, it's really easy because there's a distro which is just a re-spin of Ubuntu, called Linux Mint. So switching away from Ubuntu is simple and painless.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of computer users just aren't smart enough to understand the value of competition and choice with standardization, and happily lock themselves into a single OS vendor, and then bitch and complain when said vendor abuses them.
I don't think they're going to desert either, no matter how awful MS treats them.
What'll eventually happen is that tablet-like devices will make home PCs obsolete. People will get sick of MS's crapware, and younger people just won't bother buying into it, and will get iPads instead or whatever. But MS will enjoy years and years of profits from older people who refuse to give up their PCs, just like cable companies are still getting lots of profits from idiots who refuse to "cut the cord" because they're addicted to sports and cable TV. Eventually, the customers will die out, but it'll take decades, kinda like Lincoln cars.
There's no proprietary applications because all the users insist on sticking with Windows, and refuse to budge. So fuck 'em: let them pay lots of money to look at ads and deal with a shit UI.
GIMP works fine for me, BTW, but Krita is really more user-friendly. LibreOffice works better than MS Office. And lots of stuff is going to web-based services these days so you don't need desktop apps for them. But for places where your business needs some app and it only works on Windows, have fun suffering with MS's abuse. I have no sympathy. That's what you get for not forcing vendors to support your chosen platform. Some vendors support MacOSX because customers demanded it, so it's not like you're forced to use Windows everywhere.
Oh BS. Everyone's heard of Apple's Macbooks, at the very least. People are just too lazy, and will make up no end of excuses to justify their submission to this abuse. Even techies do it; look at the postings here and on other tech sites. There is absolutely nothing which will convince these people to stop using Windows, nothing. So MS is correct to milk them for as much revenue as possible.
If your customers absolutely refuse to abandon you no matter how badly you treat them, why shouldn't you abuse them for profit as much as you can?
With stunts like that, pushing ads and apps on people and everything, why does it still cost something to get Windows 10?
Simple: because they can.
Put the damn ISO on your website, unlock the damn activation/serial/whatever thing and you'll get more users.
Having more profit is more important than the absolute number of users. Obviously, they feel that they can maximize profit by both showing ads and also charging you for the privilege of watching these ads. It appears that most users are stupid enough to submit to this, so it's entirely in Microsoft's interest to keep treating users like this. If users don't like it, they're free to leave, but I doubt many will. So I have no sympathy for them.
What part of "corporate profits are all-important" do you not understand? What ever made you think that a proprietary vendor would care about your interests?
The nice thing about open PC-type hardware is that, for the most part, it's pretty easy to strip off any pre-loaded software and put whatever software you want on there.
The same is not true of proprietary software, and especially OSes. If you don't like them the way they are, it's your responsibility to find something else.
Exactly. When you buy into a proprietary vendor's offerings, you're buying into their business model and their reputation. Why would you continue to patronize a vendor that blatantly abuses its customers? At some point, the abuser is no longer to blame, the blame lies with the abusee who refuses to leave and willingly submits to the abuse.
No, they don't need government oversight. They need to do whatever they want to increase profits, even if that means screwing over users. Fuck the users: profit is more important.
If you don't like that, then don't use MS software. If you're stupid enough to keep patronizing a vendor that fucks you over for their own profit, that's your own fault. There are alternatives out there if you're not too lazy to look.
Lots of Linux distros ship with proprietary drivers and codecs, or make it trivially simple to download them (US law prevents them from shipping with some codecs, so they have to be downloaded from offshore).
Don't equate "Linux" with "Fedora" (or whatever distro you have in mind). That's like equating "cars" with "Ford Pintos".
Hopefully. That way MS can make more money selling cloud services.
A limit to how many people can have accounts on said machine?
Absolutely. People should have to pay much more for a license for a version of Windows which allows more users.
Better yet, move to an OS that actually respects the user.
Haha, like people are really going to do that. If MS issued a new EULA, tested in court, which requires users to make MS the beneficiary of their estate if they die, people would happily do it so they could keep using Windows.
If you're in IT and you choose to use Windows as your personal OS, you have no one to blame for your troubles. MS in effect, is forcing Windows 10 on people.
And people are allowing it. I don't feel sorry for them any more.
Well hopefully Microsoft will issue an update which will prevent anyone from tampering with the shell and installing a different one. That'll take care of Classic Shell and others of its ilk. Users should not be allowed to avoid the standard Windows 10 start menu.
Wow, you're a fucking moron. The simple fact is that motorcycles are ridiculously dangerous, and it doesn't even matter how good a driver you are, because you have zero control over other drivers.
Enjoy sitting in a nursing home and breathing through a tube as a quadriplegic.
How so? To my knowledge, the EU doesn't reserve a big band smack in the middle of the 5GHz WiFi spectrum for some kind of weather radar related to airports, and has more 2.4GHz channels available to it too (except channel 14 which only Japan has).
-1 Stupid. No one dies of sleeping except infants with SIDS (and elderly people who die of other things and it happens to occur during sleep). By contrast, Motorcycles have a 35 times higher risk of fatal crash per mile traveled than cars. It wouldn't be remotely as dangerous if motorcyclists didn't share the same road as cars and trucks, but that's how it is. I'm a bicyclist myself, but I don't ride on regular roads if I can help it unless it's a very low-traffic low-speed area; riding in real traffic is suicidal.
No, they don't. Without a threat of violence, there's nothing stopping someone from not upholding their side of the deal. If you disagree, try violating a contract and seeing what happens after you get sued and then refuse to show up for court, and refuse to pay the judgment, and refusing to allow seizure of your assets.
If you can tell me how to turn off the UI Menus....
You can't. That's how it is with Windows and proprietary software in general. You either take it or leave it. If the vendor doesn't care to make it configurable, then you're stuck with it as-is. Don't like it? Too bad. Stop your whining if you're not going to change.
I hate the touch screen aspects. There are however things I really enjoy about windows
Well you can't pick and choose. You can write to MS and try to get them to make these things configurable. Good luck with that.
That said I'm not in a position where I CAN switch even if I were of a mind to.
Sure you can, if it's your personal computer. (If it's your employer's computer, that's an entirely different matter and a different topic of discussion.) Any choice you make is going to have ramifications. I don't have a big pickup truck, so I can't tow a big boat. I don't mind, because I don't have a big boat and don't want one. I don't have a van, so I can't transport 8 passengers. Every consumer choice you make has consequences. Buying a big van and then complaining about the handling and fuel economy is stupid. Buying a Ford pickup and then complaining that the MyFordTouch system sucks and isn't as nice as the one in the Nissan pickup is similarly stupid. Same goes for Windows. If you hate it that much, then use a different OS.
I don't see the problem. The spouse just needs to call up and say "check your personal phone". Then the employee can leave the secure space or building, grab his phone from the locker, walk outside, and use it like normal. The government isn't going to hassle employees for using government computers and phones for this kind of thing.
No, he's correct. We don't spend much on health care. Medicare and VA don't add up to much of the federal budget. Medicaid is state-level. Everything else is private, so it's out of government hands (except for the laws like ACA which govern it; we're talking about funding here though).
Out of the federal budget not funded directly by FICA taxes (which are specifically for SSI/Medicare), NASA is barely noticeable, the military is huge, and corporate welfare is also huge.
Since the US seems to have the most restrictive radio requirements, set the router to default to US rules, and only allow the user to change it if they put in their GPS coordinates which lie outside the US. Most users probably won't bother.
Then tax the people who can afford to pay it instead of constantly putting the burden on the middle class
The middle class CAN afford it. If they can afford gigantic McMansions and $100K BMWs and Teslas, they can afford more taxes.
If you disagree with this, then you have a problem understanding what "middle class" is. There's a huge difference between the blue-collar laborer making $35k and the white-collar manager making $250k, but they're both "middle class". I'm all in favor of decreasing the burden on the former, and increasing it on the latter.
I don't really see the problem with doing it with automated scanners, in the manner you describe (with data being purged after a reasonable time), but with a clearly marked police car. What I don't see is why you would need an unmarked car to have these cameras, or especially for the unmarked car to falsely claim it's a Google car.
Also, maybe if police cars were actually driving around in traffic more, instead of just sitting in the grass looking for speeders, then these scanners would be more useful for spotting stolen cars or cars recently used in crimes, plus police could start ticketing for aggressive and dangerous driving instead of just stealing people's money for speed traps in places where the speed limit is intentionally set too low.
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Are Microsoft's actions legal, based on EULAs and so on? I'm sure it's all legal but I certainly can't say it's ethical. Now you might respond, what company today is ethical? That's a very good question, but I think if we just let things go and don't demand ethical behavior, we're never going to get it. If we reward unethical behavior with our hard-earned dollars, what are we doing?
That's a great point. Ethical != legal. If you want ethical behavior from others, you have to be willing to enforce that desire somehow. You can't force companies to behave ethically (though you can lobby for laws which implement some ethical behaviors here and there; good luck with that), so your only real choice is to withhold your business from companies which act in a blatantly unethical fashion.
If you're not willing to stop doing business with such companies, then exactly what incentive do they have to change? None. And that really makes it your fault that you're suffering with these unethical actions. That company is offering a product, and if it doesn't meet your ethical standards yet you purchase it anyway, then you're rewarding that behavior and you have no right to complain about their unethical customer treatment, since you've willingly signed up for that very treatment.
I like customization. That's why I use Linux Mint with KDE.
But if you use Windows, then you have no right to complain about MS's software. You've freely chosen it, and you're refusing to abandon it in the face of alternatives.
Hey, I'm just explaining things from Microsoft's point of view.
If you don't like it, you're free to stop using their products.
Maybe I'm just too naive to understand the MBA financial model behind all of this, but it strikes me that had Microsoft consolidated their desktop operating system into a single edition around the time of XP or 7 and stopped trying to use it as a marketing platform they would have a lot more end user good will. Why they're choosing to lose even more good will by force-feeding their marketing platform when alternatives are more prevalent than ever (linux, mac os, saas, cloud, mobile, etc etc etc) is mystifying to me.
WTF? You don't need an MBA to understand this, it's simple. Your talk about "alternatives" is irrelevant. The simple fact is that MS customers will absolutely not abandon the Windows platform, no matter what, so it's entirely in MS's financial interest to exploit that fact to their benefit to the maximum extent.
MS is just slowly tightening the screws to see how much they can get away with, which as we can see is quite a lot. A tiny, tiny number of defections is easily made up for by the new advertising dollars and higher prices.
And "good will"? WhyTF should MS care about that? The only thing that's important is profit. As we're seeing, it doesn't matter how much people get pissed about MS's antics; they're not going to stop using Windows, ever. So MS is correct to milk them.
Didn't Ubuntu put Amazon results in the local search box? I mean its not just MS.
Yes, they did, and that shows why Linux is so much better. (I'll ignore the fact that removing the "Amazon Lens" was rather easy.)
With Linux, when a vendor pulls this shit and loses your trust, it's no problem: you just switch to a competing distro. They're all pretty similar, and very compatible with each other anyway. With Ubuntu, it's really easy because there's a distro which is just a re-spin of Ubuntu, called Linux Mint. So switching away from Ubuntu is simple and painless.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of computer users just aren't smart enough to understand the value of competition and choice with standardization, and happily lock themselves into a single OS vendor, and then bitch and complain when said vendor abuses them.
I don't think they're going to desert either, no matter how awful MS treats them.
What'll eventually happen is that tablet-like devices will make home PCs obsolete. People will get sick of MS's crapware, and younger people just won't bother buying into it, and will get iPads instead or whatever. But MS will enjoy years and years of profits from older people who refuse to give up their PCs, just like cable companies are still getting lots of profits from idiots who refuse to "cut the cord" because they're addicted to sports and cable TV. Eventually, the customers will die out, but it'll take decades, kinda like Lincoln cars.
There's no proprietary applications because all the users insist on sticking with Windows, and refuse to budge. So fuck 'em: let them pay lots of money to look at ads and deal with a shit UI.
GIMP works fine for me, BTW, but Krita is really more user-friendly. LibreOffice works better than MS Office. And lots of stuff is going to web-based services these days so you don't need desktop apps for them. But for places where your business needs some app and it only works on Windows, have fun suffering with MS's abuse. I have no sympathy. That's what you get for not forcing vendors to support your chosen platform. Some vendors support MacOSX because customers demanded it, so it's not like you're forced to use Windows everywhere.
Their customers have no idea that they can switch
Oh BS. Everyone's heard of Apple's Macbooks, at the very least. People are just too lazy, and will make up no end of excuses to justify their submission to this abuse. Even techies do it; look at the postings here and on other tech sites. There is absolutely nothing which will convince these people to stop using Windows, nothing. So MS is correct to milk them for as much revenue as possible.
If your customers absolutely refuse to abandon you no matter how badly you treat them, why shouldn't you abuse them for profit as much as you can?
With stunts like that, pushing ads and apps on people and everything, why does it still cost something to get Windows 10?
Simple: because they can.
Put the damn ISO on your website, unlock the damn activation/serial/whatever thing and you'll get more users.
Having more profit is more important than the absolute number of users. Obviously, they feel that they can maximize profit by both showing ads and also charging you for the privilege of watching these ads. It appears that most users are stupid enough to submit to this, so it's entirely in Microsoft's interest to keep treating users like this. If users don't like it, they're free to leave, but I doubt many will. So I have no sympathy for them.
What part of "corporate profits are all-important" do you not understand? What ever made you think that a proprietary vendor would care about your interests?
The nice thing about open PC-type hardware is that, for the most part, it's pretty easy to strip off any pre-loaded software and put whatever software you want on there.
The same is not true of proprietary software, and especially OSes. If you don't like them the way they are, it's your responsibility to find something else.
Exactly. When you buy into a proprietary vendor's offerings, you're buying into their business model and their reputation. Why would you continue to patronize a vendor that blatantly abuses its customers? At some point, the abuser is no longer to blame, the blame lies with the abusee who refuses to leave and willingly submits to the abuse.
No, they don't need government oversight. They need to do whatever they want to increase profits, even if that means screwing over users. Fuck the users: profit is more important.
If you don't like that, then don't use MS software. If you're stupid enough to keep patronizing a vendor that fucks you over for their own profit, that's your own fault. There are alternatives out there if you're not too lazy to look.
-1 Stupid.
Lots of Linux distros ship with proprietary drivers and codecs, or make it trivially simple to download them (US law prevents them from shipping with some codecs, so they have to be downloaded from offshore).
Don't equate "Linux" with "Fedora" (or whatever distro you have in mind). That's like equating "cars" with "Ford Pintos".
I'm not joking and this ads things isn't funny.
I disagree. I find it very funny.
A quota on allowed files and photos?
Hopefully. That way MS can make more money selling cloud services.
A limit to how many people can have accounts on said machine?
Absolutely. People should have to pay much more for a license for a version of Windows which allows more users.
Better yet, move to an OS that actually respects the user.
Haha, like people are really going to do that. If MS issued a new EULA, tested in court, which requires users to make MS the beneficiary of their estate if they die, people would happily do it so they could keep using Windows.
If you're in IT and you choose to use Windows as your personal OS, you have no one to blame for your troubles. MS in effect, is forcing Windows 10 on people.
And people are allowing it. I don't feel sorry for them any more.
Well hopefully Microsoft will issue an update which will prevent anyone from tampering with the shell and installing a different one. That'll take care of Classic Shell and others of its ilk. Users should not be allowed to avoid the standard Windows 10 start menu.
Wow, you're a fucking moron. The simple fact is that motorcycles are ridiculously dangerous, and it doesn't even matter how good a driver you are, because you have zero control over other drivers.
Enjoy sitting in a nursing home and breathing through a tube as a quadriplegic.
How so? To my knowledge, the EU doesn't reserve a big band smack in the middle of the 5GHz WiFi spectrum for some kind of weather radar related to airports, and has more 2.4GHz channels available to it too (except channel 14 which only Japan has).
-1 Stupid. No one dies of sleeping except infants with SIDS (and elderly people who die of other things and it happens to occur during sleep). By contrast, Motorcycles have a 35 times higher risk of fatal crash per mile traveled than cars. It wouldn't be remotely as dangerous if motorcyclists didn't share the same road as cars and trucks, but that's how it is. I'm a bicyclist myself, but I don't ride on regular roads if I can help it unless it's a very low-traffic low-speed area; riding in real traffic is suicidal.
No, they don't. Without a threat of violence, there's nothing stopping someone from not upholding their side of the deal. If you disagree, try violating a contract and seeing what happens after you get sued and then refuse to show up for court, and refuse to pay the judgment, and refusing to allow seizure of your assets.
If you can tell me how to turn off the UI Menus....
You can't. That's how it is with Windows and proprietary software in general. You either take it or leave it. If the vendor doesn't care to make it configurable, then you're stuck with it as-is. Don't like it? Too bad. Stop your whining if you're not going to change.
I hate the touch screen aspects. There are however things I really enjoy about windows
Well you can't pick and choose. You can write to MS and try to get them to make these things configurable. Good luck with that.
That said I'm not in a position where I CAN switch even if I were of a mind to.
Sure you can, if it's your personal computer. (If it's your employer's computer, that's an entirely different matter and a different topic of discussion.) Any choice you make is going to have ramifications. I don't have a big pickup truck, so I can't tow a big boat. I don't mind, because I don't have a big boat and don't want one. I don't have a van, so I can't transport 8 passengers. Every consumer choice you make has consequences. Buying a big van and then complaining about the handling and fuel economy is stupid. Buying a Ford pickup and then complaining that the MyFordTouch system sucks and isn't as nice as the one in the Nissan pickup is similarly stupid. Same goes for Windows. If you hate it that much, then use a different OS.
I don't see the problem. The spouse just needs to call up and say "check your personal phone". Then the employee can leave the secure space or building, grab his phone from the locker, walk outside, and use it like normal. The government isn't going to hassle employees for using government computers and phones for this kind of thing.
No, he's correct. We don't spend much on health care. Medicare and VA don't add up to much of the federal budget. Medicaid is state-level. Everything else is private, so it's out of government hands (except for the laws like ACA which govern it; we're talking about funding here though).
Out of the federal budget not funded directly by FICA taxes (which are specifically for SSI/Medicare), NASA is barely noticeable, the military is huge, and corporate welfare is also huge.
Since the US seems to have the most restrictive radio requirements, set the router to default to US rules, and only allow the user to change it if they put in their GPS coordinates which lie outside the US. Most users probably won't bother.
Then tax the people who can afford to pay it instead of constantly putting the burden on the middle class
The middle class CAN afford it. If they can afford gigantic McMansions and $100K BMWs and Teslas, they can afford more taxes.
If you disagree with this, then you have a problem understanding what "middle class" is. There's a huge difference between the blue-collar laborer making $35k and the white-collar manager making $250k, but they're both "middle class". I'm all in favor of decreasing the burden on the former, and increasing it on the latter.
I don't really see the problem with doing it with automated scanners, in the manner you describe (with data being purged after a reasonable time), but with a clearly marked police car. What I don't see is why you would need an unmarked car to have these cameras, or especially for the unmarked car to falsely claim it's a Google car.
Also, maybe if police cars were actually driving around in traffic more, instead of just sitting in the grass looking for speeders, then these scanners would be more useful for spotting stolen cars or cars recently used in crimes, plus police could start ticketing for aggressive and dangerous driving instead of just stealing people's money for speed traps in places where the speed limit is intentionally set too low.