I would agree if not for the fact they keep making it easier to get windows for free. I haven’t bought windows in over a decade, activation is easy af, the days of sketchy malware riddled keygens are long gone.
The truth is worse, imo. They don’t need individual consumers to pay for the OS, OEM licenses are where they make bank anyways. At the consumer level, you’re never gonna sell enough copies, even on a subscription model, to profit more than you would be from giving it away for free, getting everyone using it, and then simply selling their data until the end of time.
Not to mention Microsoft’s profits aren’t from the OS but what they get from the user once they have the OS. Once they have the Windows user they then have a market to sell other Microsoft products, not to mention all the stuff on the Windows store.
They don’t need profits from the OS as the OS pays for itself in the long run.
I would agree if not for the fact they keep making it easier to get windows for free. I haven’t bought windows in over a decade, activation is easy af, the days of sketchy malware riddled keygens are long gone.
The truth is worse, imo. They don’t need individual consumers to pay for the OS, OEM licenses are where they make bank anyways. At the consumer level, you’re never gonna sell enough copies, even on a subscription model, to profit more than you would be from giving it away for free, getting everyone using it, and then simply selling their data until the end of time.
Not to mention Microsoft’s profits aren’t from the OS but what they get from the user once they have the OS. Once they have the Windows user they then have a market to sell other Microsoft products, not to mention all the stuff on the Windows store.
They don’t need profits from the OS as the OS pays for itself in the long run.