It's also worth noting that it doesn't seem to be possible to buy Enterprise as a regular user, so it's not even a matter of me not wanting to spend the money as it's a matter of the company not giving me the option.

>You can turn it off via group policy if you have windows enterprise.

No, you can't. You can only set it to a lower level.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/con...

You can disable utcsvc and prevent it from being re-enabled. Since doing so also disables Windows updates (which is why you shouldn't do it) you can also be sure that future updates will not re-enable it.

I have to pay to not be spied on? And you think that's acceptable?

You have to pay to have the option to not be spied on, because only the version designed to be used for serious business supports disabling the first-party tracking, because business users are important and home users are just another revenue channel.

I now have even less moral issue with not paying to use Windows for personal use. Seriously, they should have just made it free for home users regardless of Win7 license state (I've had terrible luck with "upgraded" versions of Windows -- clean installs only for me, and yes I know about the Insider program and the exception to this...I didn't stay up on the news and I missed the "must be installed by" deadline).

If it makes you feel better, my mother was on an insider build because we figured she would get Windows either free or at a discount, and she ended up having to buy retail anyway.

You have to pay for Windows just like any other software the creators don't want to give away for free.

This point fails thrice: - I am paying for Windows already, that we've established does spy on me - The Enterprise edition is not available to be purchased by a regular consumer anywhere I can locate - The Enterprise edition doesn't allow the disabling of ALL reporting to Redmond, only most, and only via group policy which is hardly accessible to the layman.

Your first point still makes no sense to me. You are paying for something that doesn't have a feature you like. A more expensive version does have the feature. What are you proposing instead? That you get a product with more features for the same price? Of course every buyer wants that for every product. And every seller wants the opposite.

Your second point is equally mystifying, since you've created an arbitrary definition of a "regular consumer" as someone who doesn't want to contact the sales office of the company you want to buy a product from.

Your third point is factually wrong and/or is based on a ridiculous definition of reporting. See sibling comments.

Another sad example of pirates having it better than us legitimate users.