What if? What if I run an operating system project, IDE project, email client, etc.? MSFT is going to steal or shutdown every type of software that competes with one of their products?

Doesn't add up to me.

The amount Microsoft would have to lose - in courts and public trust - if they were to abuse the private sensitive data held in their systems - would massively outweigh any benefit they could hope to achieve from that information.

That's already been tested:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-...

They're still in business. Numbers look good. They also have advertising and telemetry on paid stuff that people would usually assume doesn't sell them out like free, ad-driven services. Windows, Office, and Xbox are valuable enough that customers will tolerate quite a lot before leaving.

>"What if? What if I run an operating system project, IDE project, email client, etc.? MSFT is going to steal or shutdown every type of software that competes with one of their products?" Doesn't add up to me.

It doesn't matter.

The "what if?" is enough to cause a chilling effect. This will be the effective death of GitHub. I'm certain projects that are all-in on the platform will stick around out of momentum. But yesterday was the last day anyone would ever consider starting a new major project on GitHub.

Ridiculous. Please define "anyone" and "major project" and then let's make a bet.