Comment by SideburnsOfDoom

1 day ago

> You can run .net without azure very easily

That's true, and we're all well aware of it. I've done that for a job too.

Nevertheless, the point stands. MS gives away a lot of the .NET tools for free. It is a "Loss leader", "to draw customers into a store where they are likely to buy other goods." (1).

"You can't run .NET without Azure" is not what I said, what I said is that .NET is free, but MS believes that continuing to invest in it, drives Azure sales. Ask yourself why MS spends money developing tools such as Aspire or YARP.

The fact that you specifically didn't buy some Azure today means little: this is still the plan, and it still seems to be broadly working. I have heard MS people say as much, and also say that the side-effect of some people running .NET on AWS etc is fine too.