Technology

but it does make me happy to see articles condemning their moves almost every day

Did you read this article? It's a pro-Microsoft article published on MSN (Microsoft Network).

There are moments I'm grateful for ADHD. Basically their changes since Vista till now are what forced me out to Linux. I wasn't even trying much, but using Windows was simply a torture and too inefficient.

I assume they aren't doing any of this in the corporate environment? Because there would be real world consequences for that.

If they aren't doing any of this advertising and collecting in the corporate realm, then I just don't see it making a lot of sense in the private realm. So many people don't use personal computers. People are burned out already from 8hrs at work, they usually use a phone or tablet at home. Very few things require sitting down with a computer now.

Because so much usage is through mobile now, it seems a dangerous play for the payoff. Every time someone switches to Linux, it makes it easier for the next person. I see a very unlikely, but still possible risk that some minor companies might just switch to some sort of Linux alternative. Especially if they are worried about employees taking sensitive data home and it getting snagged by Microsoft.

It’s an interesting take, but maybe they have to. While Windows PCs dominate for consumers, os there really any point to them for most people? Does Microsoft fear the market they dominate disappearing?

So many people here talk about keeping Windows only for gaming. My laptop is Windows for one game, plus tax prep, and most of my electronics time is smartphone or tablet. Even productivity software is mostly as a service now: from school Chromebooks, my kids have grown up with free online office apps, etc. no need for Windows. For hobbyists, most of us use Linux, so very few Windows home servers.

I do wonder whether the Windows PC market is sort of like cable TV. Everyone pays for it out of habit, but most use cases have better/cheaper alternatives. Could we be on the verge of a collapse of that category?

LLMs performance are getting closer to plateau due to lack of data easily available. OpenAi is going around trying to license some data, but it won't be enough.

The company with more touch points with users is better positioned to transform these into Data Probes. Msft has windows, Apple has iOS and Google... Well Google is fucked because the other two have OS level access and can restrict what Google collects.

Now that LLM Foundation models are out, the game will be "who can get the most data" to retrain, optimise and ultimately monetise these models. And there's another whole "can of worms" with the legality of training models with unlicensed data collected trough "system snapshots". I.e.: Collecting NY Times data through windows snapshots of users that visit the site.