Internal metrics can be cooked to show anything. I read somewhere that "if you torture the data enough, it will confess". Whatever oxygen wasters are pushing for this crap will cook the data in such a way to push for their idea (as their salary depends on it) while "conveniently" not putting forwards data that shows otherwise.

How would internal metrics even capture someone using a different computer?

I think you can track pretty well with just the device ID alone, but you combine it with other identities like location information, IP address, cookies, login information and so on. Is that why Windows 11 recently made it impossible to bypass creating an MS account?

Yeah but they're speaking about switching to a chromebook or a mac. How is your device ID going to help with that?

They could summarise the User-Agent s visiting LinkedIn or a couple of other websites they run.

You estimate how many people use computers and how many people use computers you make. When you subtract the two, you get how many people use computers that your competitors make.

Not every “internal metric” is something you can measure directly.

If that is how sketchy the data they are using to make decisions is, that would explain a lot about their decisions.

Most active Linux PCs were made by Windows PC manufacturers.

If windows keeps phoning home, at some point they should see a bunch of device ids not checking in anymore.

(Internal) metrics may be short sighted.

What if they're not?

What if it really is economically better for Microsoft to "double dip" and try to monetize Windows beyond its purchase price?

Of course they are. It's just not practicle to track long-term consumer sentiment around Microsoft, and life-time customer spending. So they track something else and convince themselves it's close enough.

I think you raise a very important point. What if it's economically better for you to let men have sex with your wife for money? If you _don't_ do this, you're just sitting on untapped value.

Not a fan of the analogy, I like to think that would be her own decision, not her partner's.

Anyway, companies are capitalist entities, so all that ultimately matters for them is to make more money. The majority of decisions happen along the axis of short term revenue vs long term revenue (e.g. not ruining your brand, not getting fined etc).

In an environment of insecurity and fear, I've seen companies focus more on the short term, since it's less speculative. But it sure doesn't look very good from the outside.

She has the choice to get a divorce just like I have the choice to not use Windows.