>>55367535
You are a paying customer. You pay with your personal data.

Thank you!

- Microsoft

>>55367543
Hello, I'd like to get a refund for Windows 10

Microsoft has NEVER made their money from end-user OS sales. You're nothing to them.

>>55367535
I'm pirating Windows Server Datacenter
>nobody cares

>>55367535
now they know E V E R Y SINGLE THING about you and you're family! HAHA!

>>55367535
they dont care about end-users, they make there comy from corporations and oem's. Though there was 1 time in my country were MS tried to sue few users for torrenting windows images (even though you can legally download them of MS website etc). They tried to charge them with illegal distribution of MS apps. The users got of scott free, but MS argued that all its products to be removed from most popular private torrent tracker (in my country) with over 300k users. And all its products were removed, but today there again pretty much everything there. I dont really understand what was the point of this all, since MS didnt gain anything, only thing it gained is bad PR.

>>55367535

if you don't pay for it, you are the product, this still applies to pirated goods (especially for stuff like windows where if you don't have a genuine key all microsoft does is stop updates and gives you a black background while nagging you)

consider the following: ms and most major tech companies (ms, adobe, apple, dell, etc) give significant student discounts on most things and even gives some stuff away for free, not out of the kindness of their hearts or because schools and universities can bargain for them, but because they want people to not break the mould and continue using their paid for products, often subscription based, for the rest of their professional career, it's just another method of undercutting their competitors

They'd rather have you pirate their OS than use a free alternative, because it makes it so that devs focus on Windows only and prevents the free alternatives from gaining more support.

>>55367543
WHAT BS, people happily give all their info to google which actually make small their money by using personal information and here we have people whining about Microsoft using personal data / spying when pretty much all their profits come from Enterprise and pretty much nothing from advertising.

They give away things like one drive, office, windows etc etc for free so that they can sell their paid services to your employers. That is how they make money.

But Apple Google Microsoft... And everyone else do anything government tells them to do. Those who refuse end up like Joseph Nacchio.

>>55369704
I meant all, not small.

>>55369704
>WHAT BS, people happily give all their info to google

which have always been an advertising company first and foremost and offer their *FREE* services based on how they can use your data to advertise to you better, which while shitty is different from: ....

>we have people whining about Microsoft using personal data / spying

a fucking operating system which was, up until recently, a paid-for up front product

if you want to make the case that windows 10 is free: it's free because microsoft have had *serious* trouble in the past getting people to upgrade from previous insecure versions (xp and prior, soon to be vista and windows 7) that they literally have to force people to upgrade and it has to be free to mitigate the legal action, it's profitable because they can drop support for older versions of windows and because they get people on their new platform using their new products (new word, etc)

but it's only free for upgrading customers for 1 year, beyond that it's a subscription model (not for those customers who upgraded for free)

>when pretty much all their profits come from Enterprise

which doesn't mean that microsoft backporting telemetry updates to win7/8.1 suddenly becomes ethical

>and pretty much nothing from advertising.

if you think the only thing to be gained from telemetry data is monetary profit you are seriously naive or have drank the kool-aid

>They give away things like one drive, office, windows etc etc for free so that they can sell their paid services to your employers. That is how they make money.

which is different from google's revenue model how?

spoiler: google sell paid for services for businesses and end users too

>>55369840

and just to add to this, do you know why google maps is so good and can offer services like live traffic data, hidden foot paths that might not be on regular maps etc? it's because of those always on phones in your pocket with gps and wifi/mobile tower based tracking

by using their free products you're literally contributing to their business in significant ways which was not possible even a decade ago

>>55367535
I was the same since I was 12 years old and 3 years ago I bought a new laptop that came with a legit copy. I went out and bought legit Office and made sure everything was paid for since I used it for business. The piece of shit got fucked with lag, forced updates and stability issues several months in. After a year I said fuck it, formatted it and put pirate Win 7, pirate Office, turned off all updates and its been perfect ever since. They actually make it a better experience to pirate than to pay hundreds of dollars for their unusable trash. It is so stupid.