The statement is obviously bullshit, but the question then is, "What is the real reason?"

Possibilities include:
1. Everyone is buying Windows Kinect because it's fun to hack around with, but very little of that is translating into stuff they can make money from. Kinda like the way Sony removed Linux support from the PS3 because people were buying PS3s, putting Linux on them, and then not buying games.
2. Some Microsoft exec saw how Apple is outshining everyone else, and people are continuing to buy Apple stuff despite them restricting all their products, and thought that Microsoft needs to get in on that action.
3. The different products are actually virtually equivalent except for the adapter, so it doesn't make sense to have two different lines. But if that was true, why wouldn't they just come out and say that? (Note, this isn't mutually exclusive from #2)
4. Some other reason I can't think of?

You'd be surprised by how stingy people can be over stuff, and the lengths they will go to combat a percieved threat.

Hell, the whole War on Pot was started by the cotton industry because of the threat that hemp imposed.

Heh; my favorite is probably:

https://www.lingscars.com/

Take in the pure awesome of that website design... and then view the source code. :)

Its pretty much impossible to sign up for, or do anything online at all online without an email address.

You could live without an email address, but you'd pretty much be giving up doing anything more than passively viewing the internet to do it.

Tell them you never saw the need. That your close friends and family don't use it much so you never bothered.... Although your sister has one and all does is plays are silly games and gossips all day and you really don't have any time or interest in that.

Then deflect the idea that you are somehow superior to people who do have facebook accounts by just discussing something you ARE active in.

The key is to appear "normal but without a facebook account" rather than "secretive or condescending".

Once you've leapt over that hurdle, you can talk about privacy harvesting, the study showing that facebook corresponds with lower levels of happiness, the estimated $30 billion in the US alone in lost productivity due to time wasted on facebook, the risks of oversharing and that anything on the internet is public and forevor, and then joke about the absurdity of voluntarily "joining an advertising company".

By the end of most conversations I have with people about facebook they don't think I'm suspicious or condescending or weird. I haven't sold them them on closing their account and I always concede that facebook has its uses and agree that its great for keeping in touch with friends and family abroad... although I already use X,Y,Z for that myself (steam, skype, facetime... whatever...).

I can't tell if these people are just blustering and trying to save face, or if they are actually really so stupid and morally bankrupt that they don't see fraud as bad.

So... Basically the plot of the Big Lebowski ?

If I were running /. I'd have the editorial integrity not to.

OS/2 failed because:

It was more expensive.
It had higher hardware requirements.
It wasn't as compatible with existing software especially with DOS games.
It wasn't as compatible with 3rd party hardware.

I don't think the advertising had much to do with it at all.

"Apple does the same thing with their products they are trying to push."

um... maybe sometimes... but many signature apple commercials and ads do not show the product:

You might remember a few years of these?
https://www.youtube.com/result...

Or maybe these ipod commercials? from 2004 to 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Oh that's all ancient history. You meant something recent right?

Like 2015. Look at how easy it is to use, and all the new features:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I'd say reality doesn't really sync up with your argument here.

"Over at Dice...[...]"

Since when is that "somewhere else"? Any submission of news from Dice lacks any credibility... and puff piece articles like this aren't worth anyone's time at the best of time.

Not the person you are responding to. And a I agree wholeheartedly with your post. But the situation is a little more nuanced than that.

Lets say a restaurant hangs a sign "No gays allowed". I think that's discrimination that should be illegal.

But lets say it were a band. It would think it absurd for the band to try to deny sales of its records to gay people. But suppose a gay-pride parade wants them to play the event. Should they be legally obligated to accept the booking and play the event if they don't want to if their schedule allows it? That strikes me as quite wrong.

Similiarly a bakery with a sign next to the counter that says "No gays allowed" and refuses to sell a gay person a cookie or muffin would be absurd, and should be illegal.

But if a gay couple approaches the bakery owner and says we want you to provide a cake as the centerpiece for the ritual cutting of the wedding cake tradition ... and please customize it for this event just-so. Should they be legally obligated to do that too? Its no longer just a cake picked up out of the window; its a specific cake for a specific event, made to order for that event.

There seems to me to be a grey line between the band example, which I think is entirely acceptable. And the restaurant example which I think is entirely unacceptable.

The bakery wedding cake scenario is between them, and I really can't decide if I think they should be obligated to provide their service or not. I'm leaning towards not, to be completely honest.

Because if we do compel them to provide a cake for that... should they be obligated to provide a custom cake for a Ted Cruz's or Hillary Clinton campaign event? Should they be obligated to provide a custom cake for a KKK event? Should they be LEGALLY obligated to provide a custom cake for a religious event? Perhaps a big-tent-revival-festival-megachurch that they disagree with ... are they legally obligated to pvovide custom made cakes just for that event.

(And if the Satanist's or Atheist's come knocking next week do they have to provide custom or "Long live Satan" or "Fairtytale Jesus" cakes? Surely one can say no?)

If they don't want to continually be blamed for attacking various web properties, then maybe they should... I dunno.... stop attacking various web properties?

Therefore Apple has managed to give a discount to people who were ALREADY going to buy apple products?

So the point of the program is what? To make less money?

Keep hoping. >_

What's the demographic of the people running these startups? People who have grown up in the Web 2.0 age that think they know better than older folk that have already run into these situations and come up with means to mitigate them. Because it's "old" it's bad and has to be thrown away and discarded.

Having worked with some of these people first hand, my level of contempt for these webscale "developers" knows no bounds. It's like working with 15 year olds who think they know how the world works and complain bitterly that their parents are holding them back. Their a testament to Dunning and Kruger.

I've been pushing back at our company against using all these saas because this sort of situation is just going to keep happening, and undoubtedly escalate, all because webscale developers arrogantly dismiss the lessons of the past.

(eg: I actually had someone tell me that they refused to use port 80 because it was "against modern development practises". I'm pretty sure I physically felt several brain cells shrivel up and die when I heard that. They also refuse to use version control and branching because merges are "too problematic".)