You're paying a HEAVILY subsidized cost. If it was priced at an actual reasonable price, it would never sell. The same is true of basically all software now. VERY few people have held the line here. Especially given the user expectations of infinite free updates.
> People make a pact with the devil, they sell there privacy in exchange of a free service.
This is just... it's just not true. You can't blame people without means for wanting to engage with our digital society and economy. They need to, it's critical. And you can't blame vendors for struggling to find a way to charge what people can afford. We're all struggling to find a way to make people's growing software exceptions doable.
And of course, free software advocates being smug even as their OSs and UXs are piles of antiquated tire fires. With every credible corporate entity adopting these techniques as it is, or funding their development off the backs of the overpriced enterprise model that raises prices in the first point!
Which is not an abnormal story around here. Suggesting that it damages my objectivity is poor form.
And you lead me to think you are somehow affiliated to Microsoft. I didn't do any research on you. Quoting you: I helped build the technology that made Bing competitive, And you know what? We're instrumenting them because it's the only way we can possibly do what users ask us to do. We desperately need telemetry on failure, user engagement, and performance.
If you don't want people to think you are not affiliated to MSFT, better not to use we.