> they got burned really badly by WinXP's "never upgrade" long tail (and the fact that people tended to just disable or infinitely defer Windows updates

Well, there's a reason for that. Software seems to change way too fast and it breaks the most basic expectations people have (which I think are very good) - that if a piece of software works, it should continue to work. If I buy a machine that has Windows and Microsoft Word on it, I should expect the OS to boot up and Word to open the documents I made with it for as long as the hardware itself doesn't deteriorate. My programs shouldn't suddenly stop working because they don't feel like it. My OS shouldn't suddenly update to a different looking one because "fuck you, that's what you want anyway". And they definitely should not do any of that in the middle of you working.

I am one of those who often disable / delay auto-updates. Because of the times I had my computer reboot when I stepped out to get a tea. Because of the times I auto-updates for apps burned significant chunks of my transfer when I was using a mobile connection.

Particularly with Windows 10 (maybe 8?), Windows will try to guess when your (desktop/laptop) computer is unused based on knowledge of when you've been actively using it, and default to that as an update install time.

But more generally, it's a balancing act - for everyone who is running in an environment where they have everything locked out and they just want an application to keep running, there's also plenty of people who leave their machines running public services connected to the Internet with no firewall, antivirus, or anything of that nature, and refuse to install updates because it interrupts the service.

I think Microsoft decided they'd rather be shit on by consumers for forcing automatic updates than be shit on by everyone for a poor security record ever again.

Which sounds all reasonable; great even. But then MS adds the secret ingredient, which completely breaks it: mandatory autorestart that can't be switched off without also breaking the autoupdate (or at least, I have yet to see a way to do that in WinX). "Oh hey, while you were out to a meeting/lunch/sleep, we decided that nothing you had open was of any value, and threw it away. Shouldn't have been using that software if it didn't provide autobackups, eh?" (Even with software that does have automatic backups to guard against unreliable machines (sic!), it's an emergency measure, not something I should want to use)

Is it the same no-evil care for customer who pushes them to serve ads in the OS? I am sure they only serve ads "to improve the customer's experience"...

No, AFAICS that part is some combination of trying to mitigate the total cost of {free OS, no-upgrade cost}, and wanting some of the fun information companies like Google get from their more invasive telemetry.

I understand but that makes Windows 10 pretty toxic. I think people would be less bothered (or less people would be bothered) if they were upgrading their users to an awesome OS. In my opinion they are upgrading their users to a piece of shit OS designed to monetize their users. That to me is an "evil" behavior.

Well, technically Win10 looks better and is more awesome than Win8 (which I'd call a half-assed UI that got stuck in the middle of thinking "I'm on a PC" and "I'm on a phone". But otherwise, your point stands. Especially compared to Win7, the gains for users are not obvious.

I agree that it makes Windows 10 highly toxic and unlikely to be touched, and that it's a horrific behavior.

I just think it came about as a result of a number of rational and ethically ~neutral decisions, rather than the level of deliberate malice and anticompetitive practice the Microsoft of the 90s had.

Who cares for the motivation (outside of MS)? End result is identical.

Understanding the motivation and decisions that led to an end result allows you to better gauge whether they're likely to, say, change their stance on a topic, or other decisions they're likely to make going forward.

For example, I submit that it is extraordinarily unlikely that Microsoft will actually end the Win10 upgrade program on July 29th, because their primary goal is to migrate as many people away from their aging older platforms as possible, onto a platform they can find ways to monetize into infinite incremental upgrades.

In other words, whether they're doing it to be Eeeeevil (unlikely), or for profit (probable), the result is still the same: "YOU WILL SUBMIT TO WIN10, YOUR LORD AND MASTER"

Free, yeah right. I'm pretty sure that I have paid the Windows Tax on every (non-server) computer that I ever bought.

And wait for the next shoe to drop. MS is going to want to get paid for this "service"(ads & metrics aren't enough, MORE is always the goal). Despite the cheers of the marketeers, this SaaS is not perpetually "free". Thw more people trapped, the more that will subscribe when the extortion...er...subscription comes due.