The difference appears to be that by now, everyone is kind of used to this behavior from Google.

True. I also think the techbro meme of “M$ bad, Google good” still has a certain hold on people's minds.

On the contrary, the current tech bro pretty much loves Microsoft ever since the cool CEO took over and deeply distrusts Google.

I'd attribute that to the fact that they actually have support. My MSDN subscription once had a problem activating, but it was quick and painless to solve by calling them. That alone makes them feel a lot more humane than Google, where you have to be lucky to ever reach a person even with critical problems like data loss inside GSuite.

I'd bet it has less to do with the cool CEO and more with the plethora of useful devtools and tech released by Microsoft lately.

Also, being able to reach a person on the phone regarding my Azure billing was radically different to being in contact (or lack thereof) with Google.

Project Zero, their general position in security-first¹, and nice hardware have me sticking around, even though I can't stand their methods and mission (ad dollars by any means).

¹Watch out for your privacy, though, if you don't remove Google "services" from your devices.

Microsoft did and continues doing that, correct? I don't remember any article on them stopping that or even explain what telemetry contains.

There is no suggestion that Google stopped said practice as well. But the indignation on HN (at least) is usually left for anything but Google.

You can see what information (broadly) Microsoft collects through Windows 10 in the opt-in screen for telemetry. More detailed information has been published here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/required-wi...

They still do collect telemetry, but they've gone to great lengths to implement GDPR for everyone instead of just the EU. I do like that they provide a viewer to see exactly what is getting uploaded and offered easy ways to adjust how much data does get uploaded.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/diagnostic-data-viewer/9n8...

Google and MS are now both actively working on making Orwell's 1984 closer to reality, along with several other tech companies. I think people were disappointed when MS made a big leap in that direction with win 10 but it doesn't mean Google and Android aren't shit for their big part.