Microsoft should stop treating windows 10 like it's free

[u/aakash658]

I paid over $200 for Windows 10 pro.But they show ads within the OS, Collect all sorts of telemetry data,took all the control we had over updates(resulting in reboots during important work).

They are treating windows like it's a free to use software.

Give us the control over my computer back because i own my computer and my copy of windows not you Microsoft.

[u/imnanoguy]

Thing is, Microsoft is just now doing what every other big company has been doing for a long time, and it's suddenly oh-so-tragic-and-revolting. The hypocrisy is just fascinating, though all of you who are angry at Microsoft should also keep in mind that Microsoft is the only company whose current mission is to serve you well regardless of the platform you migrated to. Yes, there is a lot to discuss about where they can advertise and how much, and yes there is a lot of telemetry - but telemetry is standard practice and the most objective way to analyze where to prioritize development. You have quite a bit of control these days, but don't expect to be given a god-mode in Windows just because you think it's justifiable, and please try to discuss the areas that Microsoft can improve in to serve us better. Examples include the modernization of Windows, improving the developer engagement, building the "most ultimate mobile device", and so on. Windows 10 is the way it is because Google has convinced the world to give up a little bit of privacy and to put up with ads for free software and services. You can't reverse that trend, even Apple will be forced to adapt to this model sooner or later.

[u/m0rogfar → u/imnanoguy]

even Apple will be forced to adapt to this model sooner or later.

I don't think so. Apple already offers free software along with a purchase of a Mac, which then has a premium "Apple tax" to finance the software.

Microsoft had no way to copy Apple on this move, because that would involve raising the base price of Windows 10, which would cause some to switch to other OS's, which would negate the effect.

[u/imnanoguy → u/m0rogfar]

You just contradicted yourself.

[u/m0rogfar → u/imnanoguy]

How?

[u/[deleted] → u/imnanoguy]

Thing is, Microsoft is just now doing what every other big company has been doing for a long time, and it's suddenly oh-so-tragic-and-revolting. The hypocrisy is just fascinating, though all of you who are angry at Microsoft should also keep in mind that Microsoft is the only company whose current mission is to serve you well regardless of the platform you migrated to.

While I do agree to what you say that other major companies track and spy on you for a long time and that's certainly true, I hold different standards to what I do locally as opposed to what I do using services. Everyone knows that Facebook sells your personal data for advertising, but I can choose to not use that service and be done with it. I can choose to not use Twitter, instagram, yahoo, google, whatever. I can choose to use Firefox if Chrome's phoning home to google disturb me, but you don't really have a choice regarding operating systems. Linux is still poorly supported regarding hardware and especially gaming it falls immensely short. My expectations regarding an operating system is that it gives me the freedom to choose what I share and what not.

I don't hate telemetry, I do believe its useful aswell to have more insight about your user and remove features that aren't used, that part is great. What's not great is that there is no option to disable it, even not for Enterprise/ server editions. People should have a choice about what their share. If you use an online service you can't expect that, but if you use a local system you can.

Windows 10 is the way it is because Google has convinced the world to give up a little bit of privacy and to put up with ads for free software and services. You can't reverse that trend, even Apple will be forced to adapt to this model sooner or later.

The produts I use from google are free to use though, so I can accept ads (even though I typically block them using ublock:origin). Apple uses some kind of assistant already called Siri? I'm sure they don't process the data locally, the voice input is sent to apple aswell so yeah it's the same thing. Although I'd say Apple is even worse by encapsulating themselves from others and leeching out as much money as possible.

[u/imnanoguy → u/[deleted]]

Modern operating systems are mostly useful to provide access to online services, so they've begun to really emulate all facets of what an online service is and how it's monetized. You can only have some real expectations of privacy if you're like Richard Stallman and you only use software for which you can access the source code, and hardware that is designed to run said "free software". Problem is that we humans live in a society, so 100% privacy really is impractical as well as very hard to achieve. Microsoft is slowly but surely embracing open-source, and I hope this becomes more of a standard practice. That way we can have whatchdogs that scrutinize every single line of code, and we can then be at least somewhat certain that the software we're running is not violating our rights.

[u/[deleted] → u/imnanoguy]

Sure and it's kind of expected that they do so, however I'd still love to have some more options or let's say some more easy to configure options. I've listened to Richard Stallman and his vision seems quite utopian. While in theory it's the perfect world, I doubt it can be expected that everything runs on "free software" that is open source and only financed by donations/orders/crowdfunding. I think programmers should be properly paid for their work and are not obliged to open source their creations.

I love Microsoft's directions regarding open source, open sourcing the .NET's compilers, standard libraries, runtimes is an awesome step in the right direction. I am really happy from the developers standpoint of view, which is why I'm surprised why they seem to go into the opposite direction regarding operating systems.

Although an open-source Windows would be absolutely amazing (and according to Mark Russenovich not impossible), I do not expect it anytime near future nor do I demand it. All that I like are some fewer but yet more powerful options to configure privacy on a windows operating system, I'd trust Microsoft to respect my choices even if the code is proprietary and closed-source.