this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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Microsoft has become such a bizarre company. On the one hand, it's trying to be super developer-friendly, with tools like Typescript, VS Code, and DotNet Core being easy to use and multi-platform. On the other hand, they seem hell-bent on making Windows itself - their bread-and-butter offering - as hard to use and annoying as possible.
It just doesn't make any sense.
Capitalism is the reason. They’re already at peak market share. Since they’re a publicly traded company, they have to do something to continue growing. Ads is probably the easiest, most obvious, but ultimately damaging idea. CEO doesn’t care since he probably has a fat golden parachute if ousted. The entire thing is rigged against shareholders and users.
I find it funny that you cite that the company is publicly traded as the reason it is following these dangerous paths, but also call it "rigged against shareholders." I think you mean that it is the company and CEOs job to generate real sustainable growth rather than burn credibility for temporary add ad revenue. However, it is still funny given that most shareholders don't understand or care why this is a bad move and would be pushing for the ads if they are not already.
I'd actually argue that most shareholders do know what a bad move it is but are willing to stay around for it because the average consumer has proven to begrudgingly live with adverts everywhere. Amazom gets away with it on Prime, mobile ads are even worse, and Youtube gets away with it despite the outrage… I wonder whether the ads would also lead to an ad-free Windows 365 subscription for consumers analogous to Youtube Premium.
Yes. That’s the spirit of what I meant.
They only way to grow is fucking the customer harder and harder every year
They are pushing hard on the developer experience because greenfield projects aren’t being built using Windows centric tooling anymore. If it’s server it’s Linux, and if it’s client it’s either electron or a web app. What will kill Windows is when there is no reason to buy Windows. MS recognizes this fact and has been pivoting to service offerings for that reason. They want users to make an MS account so they can herd people into their ecosystem.
Ah so they are trying to become Apple. The very company that outcompetes them by a massive order of magnitude.
Ironically, I was already using OneDrive but that very push is likely to be the thing that gets me to stop using Windows in the next few years.
Microsoft is a conglomerate of many small companies that share infrastructure and a few other things like accounting and HR.
This is true of a lot of large companies in general. The fact that they make money in spite of this shows how much the markets favor established players.
I work for a small dev company. We have no idea what other silos are working on. Only 1-2 people at the very top have some sort of inkling.... Maybe.
In a company that large.. I don't doubt that projects get filed under a very large encompassing epic (or the equivalent for what ever scrum software they are using) and not overly discussed with the business majors / marketing people that are the c-level people now.
As somebody who has worked a bit with a few microsoft bound teams : it has to do with the teams and their managers.
Some teams were a treat to work with and are completely open to my comments or questions, and ready to serve the user's needs.
Other teams are terrible. They dont respond, they do whatever the fuck they want or what their managers tell them and pump out garbage that makes no sense to the users.
Dotnet clr, refit, fluint ui blazor, ...
All nice teams.
Fluentui ( webcomponents ), wpf, parts of windows teams, ...
Not so much
Microsoft has always been like this. They're a giant company with a bunch of silos that act independently and often undermine what each other are trying to accomplish.
Windows is not nearly as profitable as platforms like Azure, 365, and business sales like Visual Studio. And most people don't buy Windows licenses, they get them bundled from the OEM. So Microsoft can monetize the user by collecting and selling their date instead.
It's incredibly short-sighted of them. Windows is the gateway to easy integration, especially with 365. Drive people away from Windows, it could ultimately start driving people away from Microsoft services.
If Microsoft would just recognize that at this point, operating systems are a commodity and loss-leader, it might inspire them to de-enshittify Windows and focus exactly on the services you mentioned.
I had the occasion to discuss with people involved with Microsoft a few times, mostly on the research front. Great people, with great ideas, and very knowledgeable about their field. Of course they had nothing to do with the lobbying and the windows OS. Microsoft is very large; the corporate drones are only a small part of it. Unfortunately, it's the part that decides what gets done and pushed out :(
Aren't these all just its own products?
And wow, do I hate VS Code. Just sayin.
When was the last time you used it? These days, VS Code is on par with any high-quality IDE. And it works well on Linux, which is a bit of a surprise.
I hate that it's only open source on the surface, but besides clion or a highly customised vim setup, I don't think anything comes close to it.