Comment by fuzzfactor

>a strong cycle of "applications run on Windows" -> "device vendors choose to bundle Windows" -> "people use applications on Windows",

>but that has been eroded, in part thanks to Wine and the work put in by people at Valve.

Eroded even more so by the user-hostile approach of Microsoft itself.

Exactly with things like being a complete failure to recognize a strong valid need for general users to only opt-in to an account according to their own personal needs alone. Not with Microsoft or Google or anybody else known to be a source of unwanted ads or anti-professional annoyances.

Why abandon a remaining security element that can protect against PII compromise like no other?

It's just sad to lose an essential feature that has always been built-in to Windows since the beginning, which helped make Windows into a far better business machine than would have been otherwise possible.

And why now when security is more important than ever?