So maybe you need to be more creative to find a way that doesn't infringe the law
But how can a layman know where the line is for a particular use? The uncertainty itself has a chilling effect on creativity.
The world in general disapproves of creativity
We can see evidence of this in how copyright treats derivative works. All works build on other works, as Asimov wrote when he described connecting A to B to C, yet some forms of such building are forbidden by law.
why would I want to download an encrypted image file that requires another separate, random app to decrypt and view it?
Ask users of Snapchat.
Show me a single app that will work on one of these versions but not the others.
Any application that requires Windows XP Mode, SUA, or more than 16 GB of RAM will work only on Windows 7 Pro and Ultimate according to this table. So does any application that is accessed remotely through Remote Desktop.
Because that is putting time and effort into developing features to support competitors.
Canonical put time and effort into the Personal Package Archive system, which supports competitors to the official Ubuntu repository. Each PPA is a Debian repository with a public key to verify packages, and a Canonical-managed PKI ties them together. True, a lot of that comes from the Debian project, but Canonical still polished it into PPAs starting in Ubuntu 9.10.
Google (like Apple), wants your credit card info for the play store
Is it really any different from ways to pay for purchases on Windows Phone Store?
My laptop came with Window 8, which has a radically different interface
You could always install Classic Shell, an aftermarket launcher for Windows, to put the S back in Window 8.1 and give you an interface that's closer to Windows 7. Android likewise has aftermarket launchers.
of course I pulled out the HDD, installed an SSD and put Linux on it
Which is like installing a custom ROM on an Android device: there's ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY that all peripherals will be supported. I still haven't got my laptop's Bluetooth working in Xubuntu.
Oh, and there's 32-bit and 64-bit
And ARM vs. MIPS vs. Atom.
and Home and Pro and Basic and Ultimate and...
That's more a matter of which OS component repositories you're allowed to access than actual OS fragmentation.
I don't get why they think people would believe they need to open some random app just to view an image...
Because not all images are single-layer PNG or JPEG. There exist a lot of image formats a viewer for which is not included with all major operating systems. Compare to a common tactic used by Windows trojans: a web site displays a video with an "unsupported codec" and then ships the trojan disguised as a codec installer. Does Windows even come with a PDF viewer?
Air pollution is really making us pay through the nose.