2. Can be delayed.

3. I agree. I don't give a shit about what users do to their machine, but when they launch a DDos to my servers, I blame them for not updateing their OS. In Windows XP history, there were many viruses/trojanes/whatever that were only possible because people didn't update.

I wouldn't mind forced updates if they were only used for critical security updates. They are not; Microsoft abuses the privilege, and therefore may not be trusted to have it at all.

Feature updates can be delayed for up to a year.

On Pro and up. Not on Home.

2. Can only be updated so many times until Daddy Microsoft knows best and will forcibly shut down your computer.

3. "Users have freedom to do what they choose unless it makes more work for me"?

There are literally billions of Windows users. Less than 5% understand why keeping your computer up to date is important.

Forced updates may suck for you, but understand that it is you they suck for, not the vast, vast majority.

> I understand that many windows users are far from power users and the forced updates provide security updates

I think this largely was only true of the period between the internet becoming a thing and the smartphone becoming a thing. Nowadays there's phones, tablets, and chromebooks that serve the needs of those people better and in a more convenient form factor. Desktops are for people who do work, create stuff, or are hobbiests.

I think a lot of the reasons computers suck today is because of this idea that they need to cater to some strawman drooling moron of a user.

Those devices only take you so far. They are consuming devices only, similar to a television. People still have and use normal PCs and will do so in the future. (Notebooks included of course)

That's kinda my point though. The strawman user these kinds of arguments prop up as the reason everything needs to suck is pretty much 100% consumer. There might be a few things, like typing documents and printing that aren't entirely covered by smartphones, tablets, and chromebooks, but that's a rapidly shrinking set of things.

>but that's a rapidly shrinking set of things

Doubt that. "Desktop" is defined by mouse, keyboard and display. A chromebook satisfies this. I have yet to meet a user who uses a smartphone instead of a PC to do stuff that are notably easier to do on a PC. (while having both)

I would also bet that every user would chose a keyboard over a touch interface to type text.

Maybe you have a point, but I don't feel like connecting a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to a smartphone makes it a desktop. Regardless, I don't think those OSs are good desktop OSs either. I still maintain that this is a poor excuse for having shitty tools.

Using keyboard/mouse/monitor with smartphones is very uncommon.

> Users should have freedom to use software in the way that they choose, and not have actions forced on them by the software.

Agreed, but this had only ever actually been true with free software.