You didn’t describe a problem exclusive to Miscrosft. You described the entire problem with Capitalism. Endless growth is fiction; yet corporations are beholden to shareholders that demand endless growth.
It’s dumber than that. Capitalism does not demand endless growth from any one company. The overall economy grows, sure, but that may come from other economic sectors. Exxon and Chevron haven’t seen significant growth for a couple decades, because the oil market hasn’t seen significant growth. That does not make them communist. They can just exist at an equilibrium.
Big Tech has a peculiar economic model centered around high fixed costs (R&D) and low marginal costs (digital distribution), which has made a handful of companies unbelievably cash-flush as they reaped insane scale effects. And they simply don’t know what to do with so much cash.
Capitalism is supposed to answer that with a reduction in income from competitive pressure. If something is so profitable to do, someone else will do it cheaper. However, such competition does not exist because neoliberal governments have abdicated their mandate to foster competition through trust-busting and forced interoperability.
That’s not to say capitalism is good or anything. But even within capitalism, what happened with Big Tech was avoidable.
Either way US Big Tech is not capitalist anymore. It’s an autocratic oligarchy with capitalist characteristics.
they could’ve just sat back and raked in tons of cash by improving existing services
Nah, either they’re going to improve things till they no longer need improvement; or they’re lying about making improvements and just dragging their feet for profit.
And yet, they don’t improve the quality of windows. Bugs that have existed in Windows 7, 10, and even 11 go unfixed. Features that would make windows more secure aren’t implemented but hey, copilot takes screenshots out our screen and stores everything creating a massive security issue and Microsoft just pushes it down users throats for profit?
I get that Microsoft needs to make money, but the way they are going about it is stupid and should be studied because the more they push copilot and other privacy invading “features” the more they force users to switch to Mac or Linux.
They’re fine if they aren’t half baked. That’s the problem. There are still UI elements in windows from like, windows 98. There are still settings I can’t find in the new windows settings or print UI. Which they keep forcing on me.
Windows is their #1 marketing platform for their other services. They crash and burned out of mobile and television so in the name of expanding their business into more and more subscription services, Windows is their only popular consumer platform and problem for them is that basic OS functionality that people want pretty much was reached with Windows XP. Everything new is an application that is easily installed afterwards or in a web browser. Packaging it into the basic Windows installation just bogs things down and makes it more busy. It’s a marathon. Linux will win eventually by having features and services out the box. Practically no services. No onedrive, o365, and copilot nagging
They will continue to thrive despite these shortcomings. They will continue to push for AI after the bubble bursts because they have so much money tied up into it.
Their current vision is that OSs will all ultimately be AI, that basically everything on a device will be AI generated and adaptive, so they are building towards a post-OS world. That is what Mustafa Suleyman says anyway.
The last ember of optimism in my subconscious wants me to believe that by putting the four words above in sequence, shouted in 30pt font, the truth of it has already rung out in your mind. You don’t need the impassioned argument about how Microsoft is the shameful poster child for just how contemptible an American megacorp can be in the year 2025. You don’t need me to muster every bit of evidence I can find, because even if you don’t remember each step in the bleak parade you can recall the shape of the march.
What I find funny and I realized it a bunch of years ago: whenever consumers have actual choice of an alternative product and aren’t forced into the Microsoft product because of Microsoft’s monopolies, people tend to pick the competition.
Windows Phone: consumers chose Android and iPhone.
Xbox: consumers chose PlayStation and Nintendo.
Handheld gaming PC: Steam Deck.
Chat (MSN, Skype,…): WhatsApp and a plethora of alternatives. (Businesses use Teams because of Office monopoly.)
Yeah the company I have worked for for a long time is growing, this year it has become apparent that some upper dudes have no clue what actually happens and just give direction they dreamed up that they think is how things work.
The next level down is like just ignore that, that’s not how we get things done.
I get that the upper level is supposed to provide long term stragegy,(and some are brilliant minds) but when executive decisions are getting made when they don’t want to hear about the actual detail, there are poor choices made in an arrogant sort of way, and everyone just does an off camera face palm
Sometimes I think they’d make more money for the shareholders if they did a good job.
Like all these shareholder driven decisions might ruin Microsoft’s brand and lose money long term. Many shareholders are long term and will be left holding the bag if the company goes down the shitter
Libs always are like Charlie Brown playing football with Lucy. They always expect to kick the ball and are always surprised the ball is lifted before the kick.
Clintons people dropped the ball here for reference.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
No Let’s Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates.
(Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources.
If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
Microsoft is a victim of it’s own success.
If they continued to support Windows 10 and basic local MS Office installs, how would they, ya know, make more money?
Most of us would still be perfectly happy with Windows 7 and Office 2010.
I don’t need OneDrive. I don’t need Copilot. My company doesn’t need Azure. But Microsoft needs someone to buy their goods and services.
What else is a massive organization going to do? Rest on it’s laurels?
You didn’t describe a problem exclusive to Miscrosft. You described the entire problem with Capitalism. Endless growth is fiction; yet corporations are beholden to shareholders that demand endless growth.
It’s dumber than that. Capitalism does not demand endless growth from any one company. The overall economy grows, sure, but that may come from other economic sectors. Exxon and Chevron haven’t seen significant growth for a couple decades, because the oil market hasn’t seen significant growth. That does not make them communist. They can just exist at an equilibrium.
Big Tech has a peculiar economic model centered around high fixed costs (R&D) and low marginal costs (digital distribution), which has made a handful of companies unbelievably cash-flush as they reaped insane scale effects. And they simply don’t know what to do with so much cash.
Capitalism is supposed to answer that with a reduction in income from competitive pressure. If something is so profitable to do, someone else will do it cheaper. However, such competition does not exist because neoliberal governments have abdicated their mandate to foster competition through trust-busting and forced interoperability.
That’s not to say capitalism is good or anything. But even within capitalism, what happened with Big Tech was avoidable.
Either way US Big Tech is not capitalist anymore. It’s an autocratic oligarchy with capitalist characteristics.
they could’ve just sat back and raked in tons of cash by improving existing services
but nooooo, the profits must endlessly increase, and we needs twice as many tons of cash, so enshitty it all until it bursts we shall
Nah, either they’re going to improve things till they no longer need improvement; or they’re lying about making improvements and just dragging their feet for profit.
And yet, they don’t improve the quality of windows. Bugs that have existed in Windows 7, 10, and even 11 go unfixed. Features that would make windows more secure aren’t implemented but hey, copilot takes screenshots out our screen and stores everything creating a massive security issue and Microsoft just pushes it down users throats for profit?
I get that Microsoft needs to make money, but the way they are going about it is stupid and should be studied because the more they push copilot and other privacy invading “features” the more they force users to switch to Mac or Linux.
Morons keep opting to use products Microsoft and similar shit companies release, so it’s kinda self inflicted damage.
They keep messing with all the wrong things. In no particular order…
I didn’t mind these. But it’s not important what I think as I don’t use Windows anymore.
They’re fine if they aren’t half baked. That’s the problem. There are still UI elements in windows from like, windows 98. There are still settings I can’t find in the new windows settings or print UI. Which they keep forcing on me.
Carl + alt + t
Find / -name “flurb*”
So onerous.
Using Linux makes life so hard :(
Windows is their #1 marketing platform for their other services. They crash and burned out of mobile and television so in the name of expanding their business into more and more subscription services, Windows is their only popular consumer platform and problem for them is that basic OS functionality that people want pretty much was reached with Windows XP. Everything new is an application that is easily installed afterwards or in a web browser. Packaging it into the basic Windows installation just bogs things down and makes it more busy. It’s a marathon. Linux will win eventually by having features and services out the box. Practically no services. No onedrive, o365, and copilot nagging
They will continue to thrive despite these shortcomings. They will continue to push for AI after the bubble bursts because they have so much money tied up into it.
Their current vision is that OSs will all ultimately be AI, that basically everything on a device will be AI generated and adaptive, so they are building towards a post-OS world. That is what Mustafa Suleyman says anyway.
A-fuckin-men
Business Idiots. The people in charge are too far removed from real users, their products, and any real consequences.
Really should break Microsoft up into tiny pieces.
What I find funny and I realized it a bunch of years ago: whenever consumers have actual choice of an alternative product and aren’t forced into the Microsoft product because of Microsoft’s monopolies, people tend to pick the competition.
Windows Phone: consumers chose Android and iPhone.
Xbox: consumers chose PlayStation and Nintendo.
Handheld gaming PC: Steam Deck.
Chat (MSN, Skype,…): WhatsApp and a plethora of alternatives. (Businesses use Teams because of Office monopoly.)
Edge browser: Chrome.
WMA: MP3.
Games shop (Xbox/Microsoft Store): Steam.
Also, Zune. Haha.
True. Wasn’t meant as a comprehensive list. 😁
Yeah. I figured.
But I also figured adding Zune might give you a laugh.
No offense meant to the folks that made the Zune, either. I’ve worked on products that became joke punchlines, myself, as well.
The really sad part is that the Zune was objectively better than the iPod (at the time at least) and deserved so much more.
Yeah the company I have worked for for a long time is growing, this year it has become apparent that some upper dudes have no clue what actually happens and just give direction they dreamed up that they think is how things work. The next level down is like just ignore that, that’s not how we get things done.
I get that the upper level is supposed to provide long term stragegy,(and some are brilliant minds) but when executive decisions are getting made when they don’t want to hear about the actual detail, there are poor choices made in an arrogant sort of way, and everyone just does an off camera face palm
Their users are shareholders, their product is profit, and their consequences are bonuses.
Sometimes I think they’d make more money for the shareholders if they did a good job.
Like all these shareholder driven decisions might ruin Microsoft’s brand and lose money long term. Many shareholders are long term and will be left holding the bag if the company goes down the shitter
No, just burn it down. Those tiny pieces are still toxic as fuck.
Libs always are like Charlie Brown playing football with Lucy. They always expect to kick the ball and are always surprised the ball is lifted before the kick.
Clintons people dropped the ball here for reference.
Whereas Repuglicants are like Lucy. Constantly gaslighting poor Charlie before once again pulling her lame shit.
Someone gets it!
Year?