Comment by PeterHolzwarth
11 days ago
Boring is a short term thing - I think it's most useful to think about things like copilot AI for all windows users as a longer term initiative. Right now, I think MS is just letting people get used to a basic free tier. They will observe how Windows users put it to use, see to what degree of involvement people have with it, and evolve the product (and its pricing) from there.
Is it raking in cash right now? No. But that's just now. MS can and I feel is thinking longer term. Everyone is on a "Crash Dammit" Economist front-cover mode right, trying to will a crash into existence. Microsoft can think longer term about it - after all, we see younger generations diving in to make use of related technologies. Older demographics will, and are, slowly finding out what to make of the tech that is free with an OS install, and MS will see what kind of business to make out of that over time.
The problem with this broader topic is that people are restricting the time frame of the conversation to Right Now. MS doesn't need to worry about that so much, in the grand scheme of things.
Part of the problem is that this "free" stuff is obviously not remaining free. I'm very hesitant to invest my time in it because I don't want to run it into my workflow and then be held by the balls when they make it paid.
I'm definitely not hoping for a crash but I do think it's inevitable. The amount investment is insane and I don't see how this can be recouped. It's a textbook bubble. And the collapse of a bubble always has pretty bad effects on the industry which will impact all of us. This is probably the biggest bubble to blow since the dotcom crisis.