It’s quite common for companies to work their way up to the line of the most user hostile version of their product that users will tolerate. Especially with software where they can just go flip a switch and turn off whatever feature did cross the line but keep everything they gained by inching up to the line, which seems to inevitably result in things like the condition of windows 11.
I think the only way this gets better for consumers is if customer response more often insisted further roll backs than just the last straw if a company crosses the line. The risk of losing other gains at the expense of the user should discourage companies from trying to go full on maximum extraction.
Sadly the only recent cases to achieve that level of success were the reactions to Unity’s install pricing and wizards new OGL. Mostly companies get away with “oh my bad, this final step was just an experiment, we’ve rolled it back for now” to try again later, or just toughing out the negative reception and hoping their competitors come along for the ride too so users have no choice
That's how the world works for everything: software, politics, social stuff (good or bad), war, etc. People are bad at judging gradual/slow changes but when you push a bit too far, you have already gained so much that you can usually just say sorry and move on
Better yet: don't pick any poison at all -- both System76 and Tuxedo Computers (as examples, sometimes you can buy a latop without an OS and save the money, same goes for PCs) offer laptops with Linux installed: no Microslop tax, and hardware that's guaranteed to work with OSS.
Most people want a computer that works with their software. No, "learn the FOSS version" is not a solution. Especially because nearly everyone has some niche thing they like, some 5% that isn't covered by the FOSS solutions, that only a niche Windows program can actually do correctly.
Then at least let the company that makes your niche software know that you want a Linux version of it, even if you don't use Linux (yet). We need to solve this chicken / egg problem. Nobody wants to use Windows, they want to use some specific application. If most software is available on Linux too, then consumers can actually choose their OS.
Well, considering that you can run almost anything (excluding games and specialized graphics software) with 99.99999% guaranteed result via WinApps, I don't see what the issue is for a hypothetical member of the majority population.
It's not 2016 anymore, you don't have to switch to LibreOffice if you need an office suite of apps.
That obviously would be preferable, but if you're an avid Microsoft ecosystem user, just use WinApps. It's simple enough to the point that a child could use it.
For better or worse, well mostly worse, most of the software people use these days is either directly running in the browser or is electron based so running perfectly fine on Linux.
Gaming on Linux is a mostly solved issue for anyone that doesn't do competitive multiplayer gaming. If a game isn't using some root kit level anti-cheat or copyright protection, it is going to run just fine. Same with running most other software.
The only part where Linux is sucks is for certain creatives fields. If you need Adobe products you are out of luck. Video editing well you use Da Vinci or free software. There are some good DAWS but no Ableton.
Yes, you have to compromise but Linux is definitely getting there. Not everything runs on Mac either and people cope just fine.
>>for anyone that doesn't do competitive multiplayer gaming
Turns out, a lot of people do exactly that. Hundreds of millions of people play CoD, Fortnite, Battlefield, Apex and many many other games which won't work on Linux at all.
I think the state of gaming on Linux is absolutely incredible - what used to be a very esotheric and "roll of the dice" process 20 years ago now is extremely simple and it mostly just works. But when I play games with friends every week it's almost never a game that would work on Linux.
I would gladly go that route, but I've preferred to use a stylus on computer since high school when I read _The Mote in God's Eye_ and first used a KoalaPad tablet attached to a Commodore 64.
Currently, my plan is to use a Wacom Movink 13 attached to a Raspberry Pi 5 and make a suitable shell....
What bugged me for years is that I ended up paying the microsoft or apple tax that way. In the end I figured out a more efficient way around that than any of the rebates/refunds: just buy second hand hardware. Someone else paid for and used the windows license, I just need the box.
This is another way they rip off consumers. In a perfect world, the license would be resalable for someone else, just like you can sell a used Blu-ray. During piracy cases, they clamor about their "intellectual property". Ok so that means it's not physical, and once one person is done, they can sell it to someone else who needs it.
> It’s quite common for companies to work their way up to the line of the most user hostile version of their product that users will tolerate.
this is in general how the market for pretty much everything works (sometimes 'users' are replaced by 'the regulator', but it doesn't matter too much).
lesson in there is 'majority of users don't care nearly as much as you think', usually.
I don't think "care" is the right word here at all. We simply don't have options.
This is capitalism's biggest flaw: it's based on the assumption that there will be competition, but competition eventually leads to winners that then consolidate their positions and we end up with no real choices.
You're telling me people would pick a worse OS because they don't care even if they had real options? I don't believe that for a second.
Right, and even when there are options that doesn't mean you actually get to choose what you want for all things you care about, e.g. there might be option A with feature a (e.g. no ads) and option B with feature b (e.g. no vendor lock in) but none with both a and b - so you only really get a choice for the things you care most about. Which is effectively why gradual enshittification is effective: Most users will put up with minor anti-features rather than jump to a different platform that will require new programs and/or relearning.
> This is capitalism's biggest flaw: it's based on the assumption that there will be competition
The fact that governments allow Microsoft to abuse its position to force OEMs to install Windows is the biggest problem. This would never happen in a market where regulation ensures healthy competition.
That version of capitalism sailed 40 years ago in the USA, antitrust enforcement has slowly disappeared which creates a race to the bottom for other countries who would like their companies to compete against USA's companies. If they enforce antitrust then the behemoths created in the USA by absorbing competitors without antitrust enforcement can eat their lunch, even though it's better for consumers.
Unfortunately this also allowed the USA to have companies so large that they basically control the government, changing this now will require massive political will and a political body untethered from corporate interests. I really don't see that happening in the USA, it's been thoroughly captured after so many years driving on that path.
I totally agree. There seems to be absolutely zero focus on Glass Steagall or Citizens United so I can't see how this actually happens without political revolt at this point.
Yes, the neo-liberal economy we've ended up with has drifted quite far from well-regulated Capitalism. I'd still argue that we owe a lot of our rights to hard-fought socialist policy though.
Most standard users simply dont have an option. Mac Neo brought Apple into a lower price range, but requires a new device. Linux is there (and frankly fantastic at this point) but good luck getting the average person through the setup process.
Good luck getting the average person through the setup process
AI is part of the problem with what MS has shoved in to things but it may be part of what can help with the underlying issue of this behavior by corporations.
The average user increasingly will not need to be walked through in certain ways, they’ll only have to be aware something, some way, is possible. Because we are most of usthe average, meaning outsider to knowledge and understanding of things their functioning on a computer. I can strip out tired windows behavior to some extent and certainly stand up a Linux desktop. But I didn’t know how to easily manage retrieval of data from an old disc image that refused to mount. But I knew it was there and not impossible so I asked Claude. A one shot prompt that a few minutes later had Claude reading raw bytes in someway and finding the location of a few files I needed.
So there is potential for AI to fill some gaps in this way and make some things easier and more in reach of average users. It’s potential only though, so continuing to work and ensure open models remain a thing, it’s important. Just like the Internet enabled a lot of things previously out of reach of people. And yeah, that was not an un mixed blessing with the rest, so all the more reason to move forward thoughtfully.
This is what the Steamdeck is. But it took an absolutely massive amount of work over a decade from valve just to get gaming working. No laptop manufacturer could afford to do the same for fixing wine for desktop software since they aren’t getting a cut of the software sales like valve does.
How long would it take for some MBA to come there and say hey if we install this full of crap we could make multiple euros per unit... And then fill it with crap, spying and other things?
I too would absolutely blame a plumber for trying to fix my leaking pipes with a screwdriver instead of e.g. a solder patch. Not everything is a screw, not even in the developing world.
We can blame both. If my repair bill was higher because the mechanic chose to use a ridiculous electric screwdriver that used tons of power to achieve what a normal screwdriver can and stripped the screws in the process then I'd also be upset with both the mechanic and the ridiculously inefficient tool.
So React, the most popular front-end library and used my hundreds of thousands of successful apps, is the ridiculous electric screwdriver? See how weird that sounds and makes it obvious you guys can't give an honest assessment?
Its popularity or success in other apps has nothing to with the windows situation.
Other apps are successful despite being slow and bloated, since performance isn’t a primary concern of users. In contrast it’s critical for OS internals like the start menu, so a javascript runtime and framework is just the wrong tool for the job.
React is a javascript library. Javascript needs its own runtime. Why not just write stuff in native windows controls and save having to run an entire javascript runtime for no reason?
Using an entire javascript runtime and framework to make your OS start menu is using a ridiculous overpowered electric screwdriver that strips heads. Using native windows controls is using a proper manual screwdriver that just works
Microsoft lost its way much earlier than 4 years ago. It abused users at the time of Netscape wars and forcing Internet Explorer down people's throats.
But they hit an infinite gold mine with government adoption and for the last 30 years no amount of bad engineering was able to shake off government use.
Windows 11 is bad? Yes, but did you try Microsoft Teams? The only way to force Microsoft into "users matter" engineering is to get govvies off it. My 2c.
We could say that Microsoft never lost its way in that regard, it has always been predatory.
Where it lost its way however is Microsoft actually cared about Windows, it was their flagship product after all. It was terrible in some aspects, but also excellent in some others. I particular, they took compatibility very seriously, which is far from an easy task in the wild PC ecosystem. They were also quite good in the UI/UX department. The Office suite was unmatched too, I tried a few alternative, none of them came close.
Now, they completely broke their UI/UX, and that's not just the ads, forced Copilot stuff, etc... It is pure incompetence. They still have good compatibility, but it is not as impressive of a feat as it once was, as apps today are naturally more portable because of all the abstraction layers (performance be damned, but that's another story). The traditional Office suite is still good, but they are in the process of sabotaging it with web-based apps that remove tons of features without actually simplifying anything.
Windows used to exist in a competitive environment where they had to fight to remain relevant. For a long time now they have become complacent, no matter how many ads, product placements, and user abusive features they push, people will tolerate it.
The situation has only just changed now that Apple and Valve are getting close to threatening the Windows monopoly.
I don't think so. The web version is mostly incompatible with the Windows or Mac desktop versions.
Have you compared the UI of Word/Powerpoint/Excel with alternatives like Apple Pages/Keynote/Numbers or Google Docs/Sheets? For me, the MS products are a complete mess with arbitrary collections of unrelated buttons, abysmal font rendering and insane defaults.
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.
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.
That was the reason we ditched Slack. I hate Teams with a passion, but we're not going to pay 6k per year for a chat app if we get Teams for free. There's just no way to defend that decision.
In our office, we'd definitely need the enterprise version for compliance reasons, not because of the features. That's about 14/user/month.
At a workforce of roughly 2500, that's a 4million+ yearly cost for something that is comparable to something you can get without that pricetag. It's no competition at all at that point. Think about it, would you be willing to ask your boss to pay 4 million so you can have a different chat app? No matter how much more ergonomic and friendly and intuitive it is.
I feel like most Americans don't appreciate the financial constraints under which European startups are operating :) The median series A is something like 1–6 million Euros over here. You have to seriously consider what you spend money for on these scales.
> I feel like most Americans don't appreciate the financial constraints under which European startups are operating :) The median series A is something like 1–6 million Euros over here. You have to seriously consider what you spend money for on these scales.
I, living in Germany, rather wonder myself quite often why US-American tech startups don't act much more frugally: this would give them so much more leeway/runway to make their startups succeed.
yeah, but that wouldn't be honest. Slack is more pleasant to use, but not 6k more pleasant to use. I'd rather put up with Teams and get my devs a raise instead.
How few devs do you have? Assuming a small startup of 12, you'd be able to give each dev a raise of $42 per month. Your devs would have to be severely underpaid to notice a $42/month raise.
It's not the billionaires that depress me, it's the "temporarily embarrased billionaires", the wannabes who don't believe in the American Dream but idolise instead a winner takes all Ferengi style system.
Yep, the amount of penny pinching some companies do nowadays is insane. Teams coming "for free" with their Microsoft 365 subscription is net positive for the bean counters.
18€ a month per user for Business+ with Slack... I really do question whole thing... Ofc, when someone is making quarter to half a million paying twenty for basic cup of coffee is nothing. But still whole thing for chat application seems absolutely insane.
Completely agree. Not just govt, but everyone who interacts with govt, especially DoW. Meetings are on DoD teams. Proposals and updates must be Powerpoint. Memos in word. Windows to connect to some networks.
We tried not using Office or Windows. Ended up needing a laptop with Windows and Office anyway.
Note to MS Product Manager: this should not be a success story. I was once your biggest cheerleader, now I am so desperate to get away from you that I am starting to look at Google as my savior.
Am I the only one who prefers Teams to the Slack and Zoom?
The ability to write in the meeting chat before and after a meeting for example. That is some serious quality of life function that all others are lacking.
I haven't had that many issues on Windows "native" client. So I really don't get what the critical issue is... To me it has long looked like good enough.
No but it’s hard to get excited about two different flavours of shit sandwich. Teams is terrible piece of software no doubt but slack is worse, marginally
Don't care about windows. Haven't used a windows computer in over 20 years. Happy Ubuntu user here. What bothers me is the upcoming Android restrictions. I distribute an app that none of the app stores want to touch with a 10 foot pole. That's fine -their store, their choice. But now, to distribute the app from my website I have to jump through hoops and pay their stupid fees through a credit card (at a time when I'm trying to stay anonymous because of the nature of the app). I don't know what to do.
I bought my first x86 PC in 1994 to install Linux on. I wanted a Sun workstation but couldn't afford it.
I know people run an operating system to run programs on so it isn't easy to switch but so many windows users make it sound like they have Stockholm Syndrome.
My advice as a Linux user of 32 years for normal people is to buy a Mac.
Thanks, but no thanks. The only winning move, long-term, is to excise everything this wretched company makes from your life as vigorously as possible. It's been true 20 years ago, and it's even more true today.
I resisted upgrading to windows 11 for as long as I could because of all this hysteria. I actually did upgrade 6 months ago and it seems ... fine? I havent seen any adverts; they must be somewhere I'm not visiting. The start menu search still excludes web results like i told it to with Windows 10 (the setting must have come across). I havent seen copilot pop up anywhere annoying in Windows (although it is everywhere in ms office as similar things are popping up in whatsapp, jira, google search, every app).
I'd say the problem these days is not Ads, its Content. Firefox and Chrome (desktop and android) and Edge start with a tab of content - celebrity tat and sensationalistic world news. Windows taskbar was the same, weather and news gave me a load of tatty Content. You go and find the setting to turn it off and it goes away. But I hate Content much more than I hate Ads. Content is the problem and on that front Windows is about the same as everything else.
> injected advertisements into the Windows 11 Start menu's "Recommended" section. These showed up labeled "Promoted" and pushed apps like Opera browser and some password manager nobody asked for. And the Start menu was just one surface, they also placed ads on the lock screen, in the Settings homepage hawking Game Pass subscriptions
sorry, I have never seen these supposed ads in win11. the lock screen does display icons for things like local events and weather, but i consider them useful at best, and innocuous at worst - it's not like i spend much time in the lock screen. i have never seen an ad in the start menu or settings.
am i specially blessed, or is there a bit of (wrong) groupthink going on here?
as for microsoft accounts, i find having one (i have 365 subscription) more useful than not. day to day it doesn't irritate me at all, because i never see it.
mostly, i find win11 pretty good - its fast, smooth and the UI is about as good as UIs get.
When I saw most of the games I play work perfectly on linux, and that emulator support is even better - I swapped my RTX3090 for 9070XT and installed Fedora 43.
This is one of the areas that annoy me due to how limp microsoft is with the requirements...
Either give a solid set of requirements that let a dev assume things about a windows 11 system (good hardware security, in particular), or fuck off entirely.
Unfortunately Linux doesn't run well on my Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (which is perfectly functional other than the lack of Windows security updates). I'm very unlikely to buy or recommend a Microsoft computer again, even though I liked the hardware.
I check out the status every so often. Not much is upstreamed yet, so it requires a patched kernel and some mucking about, likely on an ongoing basis. I'll probably try it at some point but not until I have moved my uses for that machine onto something else.
Lucky me, I'm stuck one or two releases back. Windows Update fails every time it tries to upgrade. I wasted a couple of days trying to troubleshoot the problem, reading their completely unhelpful logs, but gave up.
I sure wish we could just have Windows 10 back. My machine was so much faster.
Desktop and laptop sellers need to end their abusive business relationship with Microsoft, and start selling systems with a Linux distribution. They'll save costs while selling a better product. People who know they need Windows will always have the option to install it themselves.
There was a rumour 1-2 months ago about Lenovo and Asus meeting Microsoft execs and warning them that if win11 issues continued to cost them support hours and devicw returns they would be forced to find an alternative.
Why are there so many "slop" animations in this article? They don't actually provide anything useful over the already explained text, and the "click to restart" is incredibly distracting.
Every product manager at the company in the Windows and MS office products divisions need fired.
They have made so many unforced errors in recent years its hard to imagine serious people currently inhabit those roles.
Office.com, the cornerstone of Office, is now just a prompt. A prompt!!!!
They make it near impossible to manage a small/medium sized company with the unending tweaking, moving, and rebranding of every single portal in that product.
It's absolutely wild that a company as big and important to the business world as they are is playing this fast and loose. I'm quite frankly embarrassed for them.
Did they increase profits and/or stock price or not? That's the only relevant question. Not what happend to Office.com or what you think about their products.
Also, you and me are not the customers. Govs and corporations are.
I don't that their organisation even know how to do things well. It's not in their DNA to not fuckup their users.
But that being said, I have a good laugh at their announcement because you know they will spend money to try to make the thing nice, everything they can at their own cost, to be able to win the users back and lock them, and then they will start to fuck them up again once they feel confident enough.
I used linux on Desktop 15 years ago, tried it once in a while every few years. But there was always something. Often video driver, tearing, hardware video decoding, or a specific game that I played a lot. And now it would be that my DJ software does not run on it.
Still use it on my server though.
I might try a MacBook air at some point, but they are quite expensive when you need 1TB disk for your music files. But for now my ThinkPad T14 Gen1 still runs fine. I don't need more battery or power. No fan could be cool.
The last time I tried to use Linux, I said "fuck this" when I had to open up a text editor for something so basic as making a shortcut with command line arguments. This is the easiest menu in the world on Windows, but it took me looking up a bunch of things to get it to not work on Linux.
The real crime, by a lot, it middle click. I did not realize how often I use middle click scroll until I switched to Linux and it didn't work anymore.
Each is good at its own thing. I don't understand the game of picking exactly one hill to die on.
I spend about 60% of my time on Apple operating systems, and 40% elsewhere. Windows really does suck from a UX perspective, but if you are trying to make money doing things professionally with a computer, it's hard to beat. Running outlook and office on Mac just doesn't hit the same way.
Depends on whether using someone else’s windows machine leaves you crazy annoyed.
My windows machine is also “fine” for the most part because i turned off whatever I could and tried to mod whatever I could not. Even so, every once in a while, typing “code” and being taken to an edge bing search makes me want to rip it to shreds.
And I delay every update as far as possible and am filled with dread when it finally wont let me postpone it.
macOS sucks! you need a ton of third party tools and customizations to make it sane for basic things like window management. It's no better than Windows with regards of ammount of tweaking needed for power users.
And it scans every executable and command run and sends a hash to motherbase. I don't know how people put up with this. There's probably some dangerous way to disable that like, let me guess, disabling SIP...
Window management: only if you are the kind of power user who needs complex layout. I have used Windows for decades and have used Mac on and off, and have even bought one of those window management app on MacOS, but never needed to use them. In rare occasions where I need several windows open, side-by-side on each of dual screens is usually good enough, if not I probably am working in a terminal where I use tmux.
Gaming: that's a fact but again doesn't matter to most people. Most people play video games on phones/tablets/consoles if they play games at all. PC gaming is a relative minority, and (regular) Windows laptops can only do lightweight gaming anyway. The amount of people who decides what "everyday computer" they should buy based on whether they are going to play games on it is very small. Plus, you get much better ROI by buying a PS5+Macbook Air than spending the same amount of money on a gaming laptop.
I've installed linux (debian LTS with XFCE) on my mom's computer and she recently called me to thank me. She says her computer is much quieter now (meaning fewer notifications). She only needs a web browser and a text editor.
So you're right, it's great for power users, it's also great for other users.
you need a ton of third party tools to make it behave like Windows, that's what you mean.
I'm perfectly happy with my "vanilla" macbook. Runs Baldurs Gate 3 and my final fantasy ps2 emulator just fine, and even trackmania was quite easy to get installed and runs well.
Can't comment on that hash thing, but I don't see why that would be a problem? It's not linked to your name or something. Windows does a ton of things too that I find inexcusable, such as changing settings or permissions after updates, those have an actual impact on my daily experience with these things
I have a desktop computer that I use for gaming so it had windows forever. Lately it started running laggy. Occasional frame drops and stuff. Reinstall, bios update etc nothing helped.
For debugging I installed Bazzite (Linux gaming distro) assuming compatibility would be shit but I can at least test native linux builds of some games to see if there is a hardware issue. The thing runs perfectly. I've been playing propert windows games on Proton with higher / more consistent FPS. It is kind of funny at this point. Granted I do not play any competitive / multiplayer games.
I guess Valve did a great job on the Steam Deck sw.
I've been running Fedora (or a flavor) on my gaming PC for two years. All my games work. I understand some competitive games with intrusive anti cheat are incompatible, but with the success of the steam deck I don't think the gaming argument is holding much water these days.
I switched from Windows 10 to Fedora recently. Most of the games I play work without issue but I know there are some which categorically refuse to work (mainly some specific anti-cheating software reasons).
- They are rapidly iOS-ifying the desktop experience
- All core services and apps experience significant performance degradation (to thenpoint that Spotlight regularly fails to find installed apps) which are currently only offset by the insane performance of the M* series chips
- Services become more and more pervasive, with ads throughout the system
> offset by the insane performance of the M* series chips
I'm really afraid of that one. MacOS engineers don't have to worry about performance optimizations anymore, because the chips gobble it up anyway. Ever more powerful hardware is how we ended up with the awful performance of modern-day computing.
You're probably an iCloud services user. Try a Mac without an iCloud account - it's nagging you pretty heavily to set it up, get an iCloud+ subscription, use TV and Music and Game Center subscriptions, and so on.
> I don't know what that first one means. You mean the glass design?
Not just glass. It started with Big Sur at least. It's forcing narrow and/or devoid of controls interfaces into every app, breaking decades-old system behaviours (misbehaving controls, wrong or non-functioning keyboard shortcuts, mobile-like interfaces in desktop apps etc.). It's eschewing MacOS-native development for shoddy half-assed ports of iPhone software even for first-party apps. Etc.
> I haven't seen a single ad in my system. Where do you see them?
I've seen notifications for Apple Music, and I've seen ads in the System Settings
This used to be the case but looking at Macbooks now they are not much more expensive than a Windows laptop you would actually want to buy. And since they will still have some residual value 5 years from now i think it's about even.
This used to be case before the M series. Now each year a new M processor gets released that are "cheaper" than the previous generation MAC - better processor, more RAM and more storage for similar price than last year model.
This impacted their price in used market.
> And since they will still have some residual value 5 years from now.
I dont know any private person in my circle that actually sold their laptop until it wasnt broken or so painfully old that the used value was mostly for spare parts. That may change a bit with the skyrocketing pc part prices but still.
are you a creative professional? because I see that argument quite often as if people use Adobe CS daily, and then its mostly people who do basic stuff (that photopea or gimp can handle fine), but they like to feel "pro" by launching their pirated version of photoshop.
> Macs are too expensive for the same performance/ram
This hasn't been true for at least a decade. And it's especially not true for the M* series Macs.
Even Macbook Neo can handle editing several layers of 4k video files in several apps while running everything else https://youtu.be/Mo6o8RKn7jE?is=opeCYMDbt7bUAdvS Try that on "the same performance/ram" Windows Machine
Beating is a normal English idiom. While I do sympathize with anyone suffering from abuse, I highly doubt anyone is actually suffering from use of the word.
I agree with stndef. "Flowers after beating" is a very direct evocation of physical abuse in an intimate relationship. Whether or not you think it's appropriate.
It’s actually more triggering / offensive that you brought up abuse when no one was talking about abuse. This site is for adults who understand the concept of analogies. You just wanted to bring up the topic of abuse for whatever reason. Why?
Oh please, TFA has a title of "Flowers after the beating" - its a direct reference to domestic abuse which attempts to equate Microsofts behaviour and that of a domestic abuser.
Username checks out, but you might want to check with your mother about how she feels about this comparison.
TFA brings up abuse not stndef.
An analogy is "a thing which is comparable to something else in significant respects" and stndef is right to point out that microsoft behavior, while abusive, is not comparable to domestic abuse "in significant respects". Not even close.
The TFA title is sensational for effect and in very poor taste.
It’s quite common for companies to work their way up to the line of the most user hostile version of their product that users will tolerate. Especially with software where they can just go flip a switch and turn off whatever feature did cross the line but keep everything they gained by inching up to the line, which seems to inevitably result in things like the condition of windows 11.
I think the only way this gets better for consumers is if customer response more often insisted further roll backs than just the last straw if a company crosses the line. The risk of losing other gains at the expense of the user should discourage companies from trying to go full on maximum extraction.
Sadly the only recent cases to achieve that level of success were the reactions to Unity’s install pricing and wizards new OGL. Mostly companies get away with “oh my bad, this final step was just an experiment, we’ve rolled it back for now” to try again later, or just toughing out the negative reception and hoping their competitors come along for the ride too so users have no choice
That's how the world works for everything: software, politics, social stuff (good or bad), war, etc. People are bad at judging gradual/slow changes but when you push a bit too far, you have already gained so much that you can usually just say sorry and move on
The only way this get better is if the user gets to choose between an OS with ads, lock-in, telemetry etc. and then one with none of that.
As it is now, buying a laptop in a store is a "pick your poison" situation.
Better yet: don't pick any poison at all -- both System76 and Tuxedo Computers (as examples, sometimes you can buy a latop without an OS and save the money, same goes for PCs) offer laptops with Linux installed: no Microslop tax, and hardware that's guaranteed to work with OSS.
Most people want a computer that works with their software. No, "learn the FOSS version" is not a solution. Especially because nearly everyone has some niche thing they like, some 5% that isn't covered by the FOSS solutions, that only a niche Windows program can actually do correctly.
And that doesn't even get into gaming.
Then at least let the company that makes your niche software know that you want a Linux version of it, even if you don't use Linux (yet). We need to solve this chicken / egg problem. Nobody wants to use Windows, they want to use some specific application. If most software is available on Linux too, then consumers can actually choose their OS.
Well, considering that you can run almost anything (excluding games and specialized graphics software) with 99.99999% guaranteed result via WinApps, I don't see what the issue is for a hypothetical member of the majority population.
It's not 2016 anymore, you don't have to switch to LibreOffice if you need an office suite of apps.
That obviously would be preferable, but if you're an avid Microsoft ecosystem user, just use WinApps. It's simple enough to the point that a child could use it.
Most games nowadays run perfectly fine on Linux.
For better or worse, well mostly worse, most of the software people use these days is either directly running in the browser or is electron based so running perfectly fine on Linux.
Gaming on Linux is a mostly solved issue for anyone that doesn't do competitive multiplayer gaming. If a game isn't using some root kit level anti-cheat or copyright protection, it is going to run just fine. Same with running most other software.
The only part where Linux is sucks is for certain creatives fields. If you need Adobe products you are out of luck. Video editing well you use Da Vinci or free software. There are some good DAWS but no Ableton.
Yes, you have to compromise but Linux is definitely getting there. Not everything runs on Mac either and people cope just fine.
>>for anyone that doesn't do competitive multiplayer gaming
Turns out, a lot of people do exactly that. Hundreds of millions of people play CoD, Fortnite, Battlefield, Apex and many many other games which won't work on Linux at all.
I think the state of gaming on Linux is absolutely incredible - what used to be a very esotheric and "roll of the dice" process 20 years ago now is extremely simple and it mostly just works. But when I play games with friends every week it's almost never a game that would work on Linux.
Linux is one of the poisons bro
I would gladly go that route, but I've preferred to use a stylus on computer since high school when I read _The Mote in God's Eye_ and first used a KoalaPad tablet attached to a Commodore 64.
Currently, my plan is to use a Wacom Movink 13 attached to a Raspberry Pi 5 and make a suitable shell....
What bugged me for years is that I ended up paying the microsoft or apple tax that way. In the end I figured out a more efficient way around that than any of the rebates/refunds: just buy second hand hardware. Someone else paid for and used the windows license, I just need the box.
If you don’t need a laptop, you can also build a machine from parts. This is probably the best way to run a desktop computer.
Anybody on HN that didn't know that you can build a machine from parts or isn't capable do doing so is probably on the wrong website ;)
This is another way they rip off consumers. In a perfect world, the license would be resalable for someone else, just like you can sell a used Blu-ray. During piracy cases, they clamor about their "intellectual property". Ok so that means it's not physical, and once one person is done, they can sell it to someone else who needs it.
This.. give me the - option - to not be an ad infested hellhole of an OS and sell me a product.
> It’s quite common for companies to work their way up to the line of the most user hostile version of their product that users will tolerate.
this is in general how the market for pretty much everything works (sometimes 'users' are replaced by 'the regulator', but it doesn't matter too much).
lesson in there is 'majority of users don't care nearly as much as you think', usually.
I don't think "care" is the right word here at all. We simply don't have options.
This is capitalism's biggest flaw: it's based on the assumption that there will be competition, but competition eventually leads to winners that then consolidate their positions and we end up with no real choices.
You're telling me people would pick a worse OS because they don't care even if they had real options? I don't believe that for a second.
Right, and even when there are options that doesn't mean you actually get to choose what you want for all things you care about, e.g. there might be option A with feature a (e.g. no ads) and option B with feature b (e.g. no vendor lock in) but none with both a and b - so you only really get a choice for the things you care most about. Which is effectively why gradual enshittification is effective: Most users will put up with minor anti-features rather than jump to a different platform that will require new programs and/or relearning.
If people truly cared then there would be a high enough expected value to invest into building competitor to be financially worth it.
> This is capitalism's biggest flaw: it's based on the assumption that there will be competition
The fact that governments allow Microsoft to abuse its position to force OEMs to install Windows is the biggest problem. This would never happen in a market where regulation ensures healthy competition.
That version of capitalism sailed 40 years ago in the USA, antitrust enforcement has slowly disappeared which creates a race to the bottom for other countries who would like their companies to compete against USA's companies. If they enforce antitrust then the behemoths created in the USA by absorbing competitors without antitrust enforcement can eat their lunch, even though it's better for consumers.
Unfortunately this also allowed the USA to have companies so large that they basically control the government, changing this now will require massive political will and a political body untethered from corporate interests. I really don't see that happening in the USA, it's been thoroughly captured after so many years driving on that path.
I totally agree. There seems to be absolutely zero focus on Glass Steagall or Citizens United so I can't see how this actually happens without political revolt at this point.
Yes, the neo-liberal economy we've ended up with has drifted quite far from well-regulated Capitalism. I'd still argue that we owe a lot of our rights to hard-fought socialist policy though.
Like that windows recall feature which they keep pushing
Because Microsoft makes far more money on enterprise and ai products than they do selling windows licenses to consumers.
The other thing is availability of alternatives.
Most standard users simply dont have an option. Mac Neo brought Apple into a lower price range, but requires a new device. Linux is there (and frankly fantastic at this point) but good luck getting the average person through the setup process.
Good luck getting the average person through the setup process
AI is part of the problem with what MS has shoved in to things but it may be part of what can help with the underlying issue of this behavior by corporations.
The average user increasingly will not need to be walked through in certain ways, they’ll only have to be aware something, some way, is possible. Because we are most of usthe average, meaning outsider to knowledge and understanding of things their functioning on a computer. I can strip out tired windows behavior to some extent and certainly stand up a Linux desktop. But I didn’t know how to easily manage retrieval of data from an old disc image that refused to mount. But I knew it was there and not impossible so I asked Claude. A one shot prompt that a few minutes later had Claude reading raw bytes in someway and finding the location of a few files I needed.
So there is potential for AI to fill some gaps in this way and make some things easier and more in reach of average users. It’s potential only though, so continuing to work and ensure open models remain a thing, it’s important. Just like the Internet enabled a lot of things previously out of reach of people. And yeah, that was not an un mixed blessing with the rest, so all the more reason to move forward thoughtfully.
> good luck getting the average person through the setup process.
an enterprising hardware manufacturer can take on the mantle, and be the trail blazer with a no-setup machine that works.
Personally, i would imagine something like framework laptop, and steam machine, are the best candidates.
This is what the Steamdeck is. But it took an absolutely massive amount of work over a decade from valve just to get gaming working. No laptop manufacturer could afford to do the same for fixing wine for desktop software since they aren’t getting a cut of the software sales like valve does.
That's mostly because they didn't care before. It also took a massive amount of work to get gaming to work on windows.
How long would it take for some MBA to come there and say hey if we install this full of crap we could make multiple euros per unit... And then fill it with crap, spying and other things?
I think managers were promoted for infecting their features with Copilot, and developers for infecting them with React, and here we are.
OneDrive managers on the other hand are one step away from inventing some way of adding a gacha mechanic.
Blaming React is absurd. Its like blaming the screwdriver instead of the person using it.
Blaming React is correct. It is like asking for a picture on a wall and instead getting noisy, power hungry plasma TV on a wall.
This metaphor is so stupidly bad it's hard to believe you guys even know what React is.
I'm not a dev and actually don't know what React is. I don't care for this metaphor.
As a user, however, I find that the Start menu has become more sluggish than it used to be, and that's pretty annoying. What about that?
Thank you, your comment sure helps to improve our understanding of React a lot.
My bad. I didn't realize it was my job to educate people who talk about things they don't know anything about.
lol what a weird response.
I too would absolutely blame a plumber for trying to fix my leaking pipes with a screwdriver instead of e.g. a solder patch. Not everything is a screw, not even in the developing world.
lol Blame the plumber then.
"Infecting with screwdrivers" now see how dumb that sounds?
We can blame both. If my repair bill was higher because the mechanic chose to use a ridiculous electric screwdriver that used tons of power to achieve what a normal screwdriver can and stripped the screws in the process then I'd also be upset with both the mechanic and the ridiculously inefficient tool.
> a ridiculous electric screwdriver
So React, the most popular front-end library and used my hundreds of thousands of successful apps, is the ridiculous electric screwdriver? See how weird that sounds and makes it obvious you guys can't give an honest assessment?
Its popularity or success in other apps has nothing to with the windows situation.
Other apps are successful despite being slow and bloated, since performance isn’t a primary concern of users. In contrast it’s critical for OS internals like the start menu, so a javascript runtime and framework is just the wrong tool for the job.
React is a javascript library. Javascript needs its own runtime. Why not just write stuff in native windows controls and save having to run an entire javascript runtime for no reason?
> Why not just write stuff in native windows controls and save having to run an entire JavaScript runtime for no reason?
Idk, and I'm not saying it's not a good question, but it's irrelevant to the comparison in OP's comment.
Using an entire javascript runtime and framework to make your OS start menu is using a ridiculous overpowered electric screwdriver that strips heads. Using native windows controls is using a proper manual screwdriver that just works
He isn't blaming React (or Copilot), but those who used them in context they had no place in.
"developers with infecting then with React" is 100% blaming React
No it’s directly putting the blame on developers
"I'm on HN and whenever I see React mentioned I'm constitutionally incapable of not saying something dumb"
Nobody's blaming React. The blame lies on the bad developers that chose it to write a freaking start menu.
React is the symptom here, not the cause.
What does "infecting them with React" mean?
So you’re saying that the people (HR) team is responsible and that their retention and growth policies are to blame.
I believe they are abusing their customers but I think it's in poor taste to compare this to domestic violence.
Thank you for saying this. Some journos don’t mind crossing the line for a click bait headline.
Microsoft lost its way much earlier than 4 years ago. It abused users at the time of Netscape wars and forcing Internet Explorer down people's throats.
But they hit an infinite gold mine with government adoption and for the last 30 years no amount of bad engineering was able to shake off government use.
Windows 11 is bad? Yes, but did you try Microsoft Teams? The only way to force Microsoft into "users matter" engineering is to get govvies off it. My 2c.
We could say that Microsoft never lost its way in that regard, it has always been predatory.
Where it lost its way however is Microsoft actually cared about Windows, it was their flagship product after all. It was terrible in some aspects, but also excellent in some others. I particular, they took compatibility very seriously, which is far from an easy task in the wild PC ecosystem. They were also quite good in the UI/UX department. The Office suite was unmatched too, I tried a few alternative, none of them came close.
Now, they completely broke their UI/UX, and that's not just the ads, forced Copilot stuff, etc... It is pure incompetence. They still have good compatibility, but it is not as impressive of a feat as it once was, as apps today are naturally more portable because of all the abstraction layers (performance be damned, but that's another story). The traditional Office suite is still good, but they are in the process of sabotaging it with web-based apps that remove tons of features without actually simplifying anything.
Its as steve jobs said, once you control market share theres no incentive to build a good product and you lose the ability to do it.
Windows used to exist in a competitive environment where they had to fight to remain relevant. For a long time now they have become complacent, no matter how many ads, product placements, and user abusive features they push, people will tolerate it.
The situation has only just changed now that Apple and Valve are getting close to threatening the Windows monopoly.
> The traditional Office suite is still good
I don't think so. The web version is mostly incompatible with the Windows or Mac desktop versions.
Have you compared the UI of Word/Powerpoint/Excel with alternatives like Apple Pages/Keynote/Numbers or Google Docs/Sheets? For me, the MS products are a complete mess with arbitrary collections of unrelated buttons, abysmal font rendering and insane defaults.
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.
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.
I find Teams is often simply picked because of cost reasons.
A lot of companies are paying for office and teams comes bundled with it. Why pay extra when its included?
Don't forget network effects. If other companies you are working with use Teams then there is less friction if you also use Teams yourself.
That was the reason we ditched Slack. I hate Teams with a passion, but we're not going to pay 6k per year for a chat app if we get Teams for free. There's just no way to defend that decision.
6k would be a no-brainer.
In our office, we'd definitely need the enterprise version for compliance reasons, not because of the features. That's about 14/user/month.
At a workforce of roughly 2500, that's a 4million+ yearly cost for something that is comparable to something you can get without that pricetag. It's no competition at all at that point. Think about it, would you be willing to ask your boss to pay 4 million so you can have a different chat app? No matter how much more ergonomic and friendly and intuitive it is.
I feel like most Americans don't appreciate the financial constraints under which European startups are operating :) The median series A is something like 1–6 million Euros over here. You have to seriously consider what you spend money for on these scales.
> I feel like most Americans don't appreciate the financial constraints under which European startups are operating :) The median series A is something like 1–6 million Euros over here. You have to seriously consider what you spend money for on these scales.
I, living in Germany, rather wonder myself quite often why US-American tech startups don't act much more frugally: this would give them so much more leeway/runway to make their startups succeed.
You can easily defend that for only 6k with 'but we like it and we'll be more productive with it and we won't hate our jobs'
yeah, but that wouldn't be honest. Slack is more pleasant to use, but not 6k more pleasant to use. I'd rather put up with Teams and get my devs a raise instead.
How few devs do you have? Assuming a small startup of 12, you'd be able to give each dev a raise of $42 per month. Your devs would have to be severely underpaid to notice a $42/month raise.
We used to have anti trust regulators. We don't now.
We've got a lot of billionaires with a higher balance on their bank accounts though, so you can't say it was all for nothing
It's not the billionaires that depress me, it's the "temporarily embarrased billionaires", the wannabes who don't believe in the American Dream but idolise instead a winner takes all Ferengi style system.
Yep, the amount of penny pinching some companies do nowadays is insane. Teams coming "for free" with their Microsoft 365 subscription is net positive for the bean counters.
Chat software is absurdly expensive. I’m not saying teams is good, but being nickel and dimed is a real risk for businesses too.
18€ a month per user for Business+ with Slack... I really do question whole thing... Ofc, when someone is making quarter to half a million paying twenty for basic cup of coffee is nothing. But still whole thing for chat application seems absolutely insane.
yeah I don't understand how this isn't blatant market abuse through their monopoly position
Regulators should be all over it. EU has tried, but unsuccesfully, since it was lawyers who came up with the mitigation.
Regulators are either sleeping on billions of lobby money or asleep at the wheel
Completely agree. Not just govt, but everyone who interacts with govt, especially DoW. Meetings are on DoD teams. Proposals and updates must be Powerpoint. Memos in word. Windows to connect to some networks.
We tried not using Office or Windows. Ended up needing a laptop with Windows and Office anyway.
Note to MS Product Manager: this should not be a success story. I was once your biggest cheerleader, now I am so desperate to get away from you that I am starting to look at Google as my savior.
Am I the only one who prefers Teams to the Slack and Zoom?
The ability to write in the meeting chat before and after a meeting for example. That is some serious quality of life function that all others are lacking.
I haven't had that many issues on Windows "native" client. So I really don't get what the critical issue is... To me it has long looked like good enough.
No but it’s hard to get excited about two different flavours of shit sandwich. Teams is terrible piece of software no doubt but slack is worse, marginally
Yes, and you are wrong.
Objectively.
Don't care about windows. Haven't used a windows computer in over 20 years. Happy Ubuntu user here. What bothers me is the upcoming Android restrictions. I distribute an app that none of the app stores want to touch with a 10 foot pole. That's fine -their store, their choice. But now, to distribute the app from my website I have to jump through hoops and pay their stupid fees through a credit card (at a time when I'm trying to stay anonymous because of the nature of the app). I don't know what to do.
Pulling the emergency break promising to improve a situation will in general not build any trust unless the mea culpa also includes:
1. An analysis of what allowed the situation to get out of control to begin with
2. Systematic changes to prevent it from happening again
Otherwise you will just be in the same situation again in 3 years. And neither is included in Microsoft's messaging here.
I don't really see that happening here.
Microsoft doesn't have any trust to lose, and they won't be gaining any by this move.
That is the one advantage they have in all of this. Their public image is as bad as it can get.
I bought my first x86 PC in 1994 to install Linux on. I wanted a Sun workstation but couldn't afford it.
I know people run an operating system to run programs on so it isn't easy to switch but so many windows users make it sound like they have Stockholm Syndrome.
My advice as a Linux user of 32 years for normal people is to buy a Mac.
Thanks, but no thanks. The only winning move, long-term, is to excise everything this wretched company makes from your life as vigorously as possible. It's been true 20 years ago, and it's even more true today.
I resisted upgrading to windows 11 for as long as I could because of all this hysteria. I actually did upgrade 6 months ago and it seems ... fine? I havent seen any adverts; they must be somewhere I'm not visiting. The start menu search still excludes web results like i told it to with Windows 10 (the setting must have come across). I havent seen copilot pop up anywhere annoying in Windows (although it is everywhere in ms office as similar things are popping up in whatsapp, jira, google search, every app).
I'd say the problem these days is not Ads, its Content. Firefox and Chrome (desktop and android) and Edge start with a tab of content - celebrity tat and sensationalistic world news. Windows taskbar was the same, weather and news gave me a load of tatty Content. You go and find the setting to turn it off and it goes away. But I hate Content much more than I hate Ads. Content is the problem and on that front Windows is about the same as everything else.
> injected advertisements into the Windows 11 Start menu's "Recommended" section. These showed up labeled "Promoted" and pushed apps like Opera browser and some password manager nobody asked for. And the Start menu was just one surface, they also placed ads on the lock screen, in the Settings homepage hawking Game Pass subscriptions
sorry, I have never seen these supposed ads in win11. the lock screen does display icons for things like local events and weather, but i consider them useful at best, and innocuous at worst - it's not like i spend much time in the lock screen. i have never seen an ad in the start menu or settings.
am i specially blessed, or is there a bit of (wrong) groupthink going on here?
as for microsoft accounts, i find having one (i have 365 subscription) more useful than not. day to day it doesn't irritate me at all, because i never see it.
mostly, i find win11 pretty good - its fast, smooth and the UI is about as good as UIs get.
>sorry, I have never seen these supposed ads in win11
It's a setting called "Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen", and it's checked by default.
Replaced all our windows machines with mac silicon and linux 6 months ago. No one is going back no matter what they do now.
When I saw most of the games I play work perfectly on linux, and that emulator support is even better - I swapped my RTX3090 for 9070XT and installed Fedora 43.
I had enough of Windows 11's ads that I bought a Mac mini for personal use and requested a Macbook to replace my Windows laptop.
I will have to use Teams and Outlook at work because I don't have a choice. But that's it Microsoft.
'Microsoft was entering a mode called "swarming",'
Swarming, as in locusts, or else flies on shit.
Their office subscriptions are also going up in price at. Crazy rates. Giving Stiff competition to food price inflation
All because it has some AI stuff on it that I don’t want.
Yes the price hike is almost 2x
If anyone knows how to revert to non-AI version of the subscription let me know
Funny thing: I wanted to try out Copilot to help with creating a starting point for a diagram in Visio.
Copilot isn't in Visio (at least in the subscription my work pays for).
I used Copilot's chat interface instead, and it is unable to generate a diagram in the Visio .vsdx format; it tried, failed, tried to fix it, failed.
Sigh.
Copilot's glaring limitations when interacting with Office are insane considering that's its main value prop
Love the quiz at the end
It's remarkable that computer users are paying $139 to give data to Microsoft through an ad-supported "operating system"
Back in the day (generally) only OEMs paid
What is the $139 for
Thanks for the curated and well described list!
Sorry Pavan, I'm happier with Fedora Atomic and Bazzite now.
Functional test: verifying authenticated comment posting capabilities.
Finally they realizing the power of linux is cannot be taken for granted
Windows 11 should run on ANY PC.
I am customer and I absolutely hate it that they have restricted the machine that Windows can run on.
If they don't fix this sort of anti customer garbage then all their words are pure horseshit.
This is one of the areas that annoy me due to how limp microsoft is with the requirements...
Either give a solid set of requirements that let a dev assume things about a windows 11 system (good hardware security, in particular), or fuck off entirely.
have you thought about switching to another OS?
Unfortunately Linux doesn't run well on my Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (which is perfectly functional other than the lack of Windows security updates). I'm very unlikely to buy or recommend a Microsoft computer again, even though I liked the hardware.
Looks like your device is supported & has been for a while ?
https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/nwr4kd/best_d...
I check out the status every so often. Not much is upstreamed yet, so it requires a patched kernel and some mucking about, likely on an ongoing basis. I'll probably try it at some point but not until I have moved my uses for that machine onto something else.
Lucky me, I'm stuck one or two releases back. Windows Update fails every time it tries to upgrade. I wasted a couple of days trying to troubleshoot the problem, reading their completely unhelpful logs, but gave up.
I sure wish we could just have Windows 10 back. My machine was so much faster.
Desktop and laptop sellers need to end their abusive business relationship with Microsoft, and start selling systems with a Linux distribution. They'll save costs while selling a better product. People who know they need Windows will always have the option to install it themselves.
I actually belive that is what triggered this.
There was a rumour 1-2 months ago about Lenovo and Asus meeting Microsoft execs and warning them that if win11 issues continued to cost them support hours and devicw returns they would be forced to find an alternative.
Now there's an idea I can get behind.
Why are there so many "slop" animations in this article? They don't actually provide anything useful over the already explained text, and the "click to restart" is incredibly distracting.
Reading the article without Firefox's reader mode is a pain. Maybe it's a secret plan of Mozilla to promote their browser.
Every product manager at the company in the Windows and MS office products divisions need fired.
They have made so many unforced errors in recent years its hard to imagine serious people currently inhabit those roles.
Office.com, the cornerstone of Office, is now just a prompt. A prompt!!!!
They make it near impossible to manage a small/medium sized company with the unending tweaking, moving, and rebranding of every single portal in that product.
It's absolutely wild that a company as big and important to the business world as they are is playing this fast and loose. I'm quite frankly embarrassed for them.
Yeah, but...
Did they increase profits and/or stock price or not? That's the only relevant question. Not what happend to Office.com or what you think about their products.
Also, you and me are not the customers. Govs and corporations are.
Did they really fix the taskbar? I still cannot change it to either side of the screen, am i missing something?
no, the big news is that finally they have the intention to do it
I don't think the fix is released yet, except for Insider builds.
I don't that their organisation even know how to do things well. It's not in their DNA to not fuckup their users.
But that being said, I have a good laugh at their announcement because you know they will spend money to try to make the thing nice, everything they can at their own cost, to be able to win the users back and lock them, and then they will start to fuck them up again once they feel confident enough.
These flowers smell like shit.
If you don't use Linux or MacOS yet, why?
I used linux on Desktop 15 years ago, tried it once in a while every few years. But there was always something. Often video driver, tearing, hardware video decoding, or a specific game that I played a lot. And now it would be that my DJ software does not run on it.
Still use it on my server though.
I might try a MacBook air at some point, but they are quite expensive when you need 1TB disk for your music files. But for now my ThinkPad T14 Gen1 still runs fine. I don't need more battery or power. No fan could be cool.
The last time I tried to use Linux, I said "fuck this" when I had to open up a text editor for something so basic as making a shortcut with command line arguments. This is the easiest menu in the world on Windows, but it took me looking up a bunch of things to get it to not work on Linux.
The real crime, by a lot, it middle click. I did not realize how often I use middle click scroll until I switched to Linux and it didn't work anymore.
So you switched something as fundamental as the OS, and were pissed that it was … different?
You can fault Linux as the primary desktop environment for a few things, but that it’s different to MS is not one of those.
Do you also rant about having no windows key on a MacBook?
I use a blend of Windows, MacOS, iOS and Linux.
Each is good at its own thing. I don't understand the game of picking exactly one hill to die on.
I spend about 60% of my time on Apple operating systems, and 40% elsewhere. Windows really does suck from a UX perspective, but if you are trying to make money doing things professionally with a computer, it's hard to beat. Running outlook and office on Mac just doesn't hit the same way.
Because Windows works just fine for me.
I'm a dev, I don't game. No issues.
Why people find this hard to believe is kind of puzzling to be honest. As if everyone's experience simply HAS to match your own.
Depends on whether using someone else’s windows machine leaves you crazy annoyed.
My windows machine is also “fine” for the most part because i turned off whatever I could and tried to mod whatever I could not. Even so, every once in a while, typing “code” and being taken to an edge bing search makes me want to rip it to shreds.
And I delay every update as far as possible and am filled with dread when it finally wont let me postpone it.
It isn’t that fine now that I think about it.
Do you use powershell or run WSL
macOS sucks! you need a ton of third party tools and customizations to make it sane for basic things like window management. It's no better than Windows with regards of ammount of tweaking needed for power users.
And it scans every executable and command run and sends a hash to motherbase. I don't know how people put up with this. There's probably some dangerous way to disable that like, let me guess, disabling SIP...
And it sucks at gaming.
Linux on the other hand is great for power users!
Window management: only if you are the kind of power user who needs complex layout. I have used Windows for decades and have used Mac on and off, and have even bought one of those window management app on MacOS, but never needed to use them. In rare occasions where I need several windows open, side-by-side on each of dual screens is usually good enough, if not I probably am working in a terminal where I use tmux.
Gaming: that's a fact but again doesn't matter to most people. Most people play video games on phones/tablets/consoles if they play games at all. PC gaming is a relative minority, and (regular) Windows laptops can only do lightweight gaming anyway. The amount of people who decides what "everyday computer" they should buy based on whether they are going to play games on it is very small. Plus, you get much better ROI by buying a PS5+Macbook Air than spending the same amount of money on a gaming laptop.
I've installed linux (debian LTS with XFCE) on my mom's computer and she recently called me to thank me. She says her computer is much quieter now (meaning fewer notifications). She only needs a web browser and a text editor.
So you're right, it's great for power users, it's also great for other users.
I fucking love XFCE! And have more than a decade of mileage with it.
you need a ton of third party tools to make it behave like Windows, that's what you mean.
I'm perfectly happy with my "vanilla" macbook. Runs Baldurs Gate 3 and my final fantasy ps2 emulator just fine, and even trackmania was quite easy to get installed and runs well.
Can't comment on that hash thing, but I don't see why that would be a problem? It's not linked to your name or something. Windows does a ton of things too that I find inexcusable, such as changing settings or permissions after updates, those have an actual impact on my daily experience with these things
Games
I have a desktop computer that I use for gaming so it had windows forever. Lately it started running laggy. Occasional frame drops and stuff. Reinstall, bios update etc nothing helped.
For debugging I installed Bazzite (Linux gaming distro) assuming compatibility would be shit but I can at least test native linux builds of some games to see if there is a hardware issue. The thing runs perfectly. I've been playing propert windows games on Proton with higher / more consistent FPS. It is kind of funny at this point. Granted I do not play any competitive / multiplayer games.
I guess Valve did a great job on the Steam Deck sw.
I've been running Fedora (or a flavor) on my gaming PC for two years. All my games work. I understand some competitive games with intrusive anti cheat are incompatible, but with the success of the steam deck I don't think the gaming argument is holding much water these days.
Fair. Depends on the game to be honest.
I switched from Windows 10 to Fedora recently. Most of the games I play work without issue but I know there are some which categorically refuse to work (mainly some specific anti-cheating software reasons).
Do you play fortnite? Steam's linux support is really good but I kept a Windows install for a couple of years so I could keep playing fortnite.
Macs are circling down the same drain.
In what way?
- They are rapidly iOS-ifying the desktop experience
- All core services and apps experience significant performance degradation (to thenpoint that Spotlight regularly fails to find installed apps) which are currently only offset by the insane performance of the M* series chips
- Services become more and more pervasive, with ads throughout the system
> offset by the insane performance of the M* series chips
I'm really afraid of that one. MacOS engineers don't have to worry about performance optimizations anymore, because the chips gobble it up anyway. Ever more powerful hardware is how we ended up with the awful performance of modern-day computing.
I don't know what that first one means. You mean the glass design?
Yeah, spotlight has been rough for years, I grant you that.
I haven't seen a single ad in my system. Where do you see them?
You're probably an iCloud services user. Try a Mac without an iCloud account - it's nagging you pretty heavily to set it up, get an iCloud+ subscription, use TV and Music and Game Center subscriptions, and so on.
I am not. I don't even have Apple ID.
> I don't know what that first one means. You mean the glass design?
Not just glass. It started with Big Sur at least. It's forcing narrow and/or devoid of controls interfaces into every app, breaking decades-old system behaviours (misbehaving controls, wrong or non-functioning keyboard shortcuts, mobile-like interfaces in desktop apps etc.). It's eschewing MacOS-native development for shoddy half-assed ports of iPhone software even for first-party apps. Etc.
> I haven't seen a single ad in my system. Where do you see them?
I've seen notifications for Apple Music, and I've seen ads in the System Settings
Because they suck.
I moved to ultramarine linux and it's great - fast, has a nifty desktop management system, a few bugs but more than happy compared to using microsoft.
"It sucks"
Ha!
Macs are too expensive for the same performance/ram, and Linux still can't run proper creative software.
"Most companies still do not publish Linux builds for creative software"
There, fixed it for you.
It's not like Linux is the blocker here.
This used to be the case but looking at Macbooks now they are not much more expensive than a Windows laptop you would actually want to buy. And since they will still have some residual value 5 years from now i think it's about even.
This used to be case before the M series. Now each year a new M processor gets released that are "cheaper" than the previous generation MAC - better processor, more RAM and more storage for similar price than last year model. This impacted their price in used market.
> And since they will still have some residual value 5 years from now.
I dont know any private person in my circle that actually sold their laptop until it wasnt broken or so painfully old that the used value was mostly for spare parts. That may change a bit with the skyrocketing pc part prices but still.
My main computer is a 2020 m1 Mac. It handles everything I throw at it. I predict I’ll upgrade in maybe 4-5 years.
are you a creative professional? because I see that argument quite often as if people use Adobe CS daily, and then its mostly people who do basic stuff (that photopea or gimp can handle fine), but they like to feel "pro" by launching their pirated version of photoshop.
I use krita, adobe substance 2024, blender and whatever other software. Professionally.
When I hear these arguments I just think these people are simply chained.
> Macs are too expensive for the same performance/ram
This hasn't been true for at least a decade. And it's especially not true for the M* series Macs.
Even Macbook Neo can handle editing several layers of 4k video files in several apps while running everything else https://youtu.be/Mo6o8RKn7jE?is=opeCYMDbt7bUAdvS Try that on "the same performance/ram" Windows Machine
Heartbreaking: The Worst Company You Know Just Made A Great Point
Enough with the memes.
I think we need to be a bit more careful and considerate around the use of language around physical abuse, or abuse in general, and using software.
Saying that here as someone that isn't fond of the Windows experience these days, but the two are not relatable.
Beating is a normal English idiom. While I do sympathize with anyone suffering from abuse, I highly doubt anyone is actually suffering from use of the word.
I agree with stndef. "Flowers after beating" is a very direct evocation of physical abuse in an intimate relationship. Whether or not you think it's appropriate.
If you don't claim it's inapropriate then what's left to agree about?
I'm willing to be wrong, but it's specifically mentioned as an analogy for abuse in the article itself.
Not trying to turn everything "woke", but phrasing of scenarios around this just takes away from the severity of what actual abuse is.
It’s actually more triggering / offensive that you brought up abuse when no one was talking about abuse. This site is for adults who understand the concept of analogies. You just wanted to bring up the topic of abuse for whatever reason. Why?
Oh please, TFA has a title of "Flowers after the beating" - its a direct reference to domestic abuse which attempts to equate Microsofts behaviour and that of a domestic abuser.
Username checks out, but you might want to check with your mother about how she feels about this comparison.
TFA brings up abuse not stndef.
An analogy is "a thing which is comparable to something else in significant respects" and stndef is right to point out that microsoft behavior, while abusive, is not comparable to domestic abuse "in significant respects". Not even close.
The TFA title is sensational for effect and in very poor taste.
How does it take away from the severity of actual abuse? By not mentioning it when it's not relevant to the analogy?