Comment by zuminator
3 months ago
I'm more curious about what their thoughts are. They have to know what the community thinks about these moves. What do they intend to accomplish? I'd like to hear the roadmap from the lion's mouth, so to speak, if they have some kind of justification that would make sense to the skeptical observer.
It is a command from the top, possibly very top aka CEO. What the community thinks doesn't matter. What matters is how much ad money they earn and how much of your private information they can track.
The justification is money. Microsoft doesn't make any money off of offline accounts.
They used to get money from selling products, like Windows. That we are in this situation where they choose to give the OS away for free but then have to scramble to find money in obnoxious ways afterward is bizarre to me. It's not like they started this process with zero market share.
They have a total monopoly on OSes able to run Windows software; this is their strong point: write some random software in 1996, still works today. As a result they can quadruple-dip by having users pay for the OS, show them ads, inflict them unwanted products, and (maybe? if they don't now they surely could without repercussions) sell their data. This is what monopolies do.
The versions that are respectful of users are gated behind "being a company" requirement.
(exception of Windows Server but it's kinda messy to setup for gaming. Though it kinda shows that when they have actual competition on a market they do nice things)
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