It doesn't solve the problem of "forced upgrades", but as you said, the upgrades are free. But none of that is actually what bothers me. If Microsoft was trying to push us all to Windows 10, I would be kind of ok with that. At the heart of my first post, I was saying that I don't even exactly have a problem with them pushing people towards a subscription model, if the intention of that subscription model is to keep everyone up-to-date by having a lower yearly cost for continued updates, rather than a higher up-front cost.

It seems to me that part of the problem Microsoft runs into is, people will buy Windows XP and then stick with it for 10 years because they don't want to pay $250 per computer to upgrade to the next version, only to know that they're supposed to spend $250 in a couple years for the next version. The result is that Microsoft has to offer continued support for old versions of their software for 10 years, which kind of sucks for Microsoft. Part of my thinking is that, because of how IT business decisions work, even if they were to charge the same amount ($100/year subscription vs. $250 every 2.5 years to buy a new version), they'd probably get more people to pay it for subscription services. This is especially true if they bundle it with other services businesses use (Office 365) to make it a good value for the money.

What doesn't work for me, however, is the idea of an operating system that stops working if you stop paying the subscription. I couldn't, in good conscience, recommend that to a client.

It's a small point, I'm actually not sure that's true. I support Macs and PCs, and I suspect that if your business can go with Macs, the TCO may be lower. Of course, that depends on things like user training, what kinds of systems your IT department is familiar with, and what kinds of functionality you need from your computer. Yes, you're going to spend at least $1000 for a laptop and at least $600 for a desktop, but I wouldn't generally recommend businesses buy those cheapo $300 desktop/ $700 laptops anyway. You'll spend more money supporting them than you save buying them.

But speaking as an IT pro, none of this solves the "I don't want to spend any money" problem. If you don't want to spend any money, then don't attempt to run a business. Keeping the TCO low does not mean "not spending money".

Well not "nothing" exactly. If Windows forces people to go with a subscription plan where their computers stop working when they stop paying the subscription, I'll warn my clients of that danger. I'll probably recommend against going along with the whole thing, and offer help them look for alternatives if possible (e.g. standardizing on the last version of Windows without that requirement, evaluating alternative operating systems). Given my experiences, I'd expect that a few will switch to Mac, most will want to standardize on Windows 8.1 and wait to see how things shake out. A lot of clients didn't want to upgrade from XP, and we're only getting the last few to upgrade now that Microsoft has officially dropped support, so if we recommend going no further than Windows 8 or 10 or whichever is the last version you can "buy", then I doubt clients will object.

Of course, though, some clients will still want to go with Windows, and some won't have a choice. Microsoft has a long history of trying to make sure you have no choice other than to go along with buying the products they want you to buy. In the end, if my client has a business need that requires Windows, and they choose to spend their money on paying a subscription, I'll set it up for them. It's not my job to tell my clients what to do. I advise them on what choice I think is good, and then help them with whatever choice they make.

Why are you surprised that a 5.8 thousand byte image has more artifacts than a 2 million(ish) byte image?

If all predictions had indeed not come to pass, you might have a point. But of course that's hyperbole, which is to say: you are making shit up. In the real, fact-based world climate science has an all-too-good track record. Yes, it is not perfectly accurate, but that's really not something with which to comfort yourself. If you get run over by a bus, it doesn't matter whether it hits you from the front or the side: you're still dead. It's best to pay attention and get out of the way when there is a bus bearing down on you. And as for extinction events, it doesn't matter whether they're human-caused or not. What matters is not being taken out by them. Or anyway, so the thinking goes...

Right, that was my point. The methane doesn't just disappear.

Offshoring and immigration are completely irrelevant to the "information wants to be free" debate. One is about labor relations, and asking the government not to enable (though immigration and tax policy) greedy corporations to force down the price of wages for local people just to stuff the pockets of corporate shareholders and executives. The other is about communication and not prohibiting any forms of it. They have nothing to do with each other.

Yes. You got a problem with that?

The profit comes first. The full outline would be something like this.

* Do unethical things.
* ????
* Profit
* Deny the unethical things happened
* Admit something unethical may have happened, but ask people to wait before passing judgment
* Delay
* Admit the whole thing, but claim that the time for a response has already passed.

Expected, could and maybe do not have probabilities assigned. So when you say "with a very low probability," you are putting words in gmustera's mouth. The probability isn't very low. It's likely that this caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event. But I'm sure that you, with your anti-government rhetoric and your bunker in the basement, will survive an extinction event just fine. No doubt you've done the science, and figured out how much stockpiled oxygen you need to stockpile to get through it, and how big your airtight greenhousese need to be to grow the food you won't be able to safely grow outside, and that's why you're not worried.

Remember that uncertainty cuts both ways, Padawan.

About seven times better. Which is great if you don't have a warming problem; not so great if you do. Also, excessive CO2 production in the ocean leads to acidification, which leads to dead zones. And you really, really don't want dead zones.

Methane oxidizes, yielding CO2. You don't even know basic chemistry, and you are making scientific-sounding statements about atmosphere science. Sigh. One of the big problems with society today: idiots are completely sure of themselves, and smart people communicate with equivocation in contexts where equivocation will be understood to correlate with uncertainty. See? I can't even stop myself!

Well you're not alone in that, but I doubt you represent "most people" either. Most people with Windows do want Windows updates and access to the latest versions of Windows and Office. Many want some kind of "Dropbox"-like service, and don't care an awful lot what the particular service is. And most people who know what they're doing would like some level of MDM-- if only device tracking and possibly patch-management type stuff. Actually I would say that those things are becoming pretty much a requirement for most of the small businesses that I deal with, though most of the individuals I deal with don't necessarily understand what these things are.

But I also see a possible objection in that Microsoft shouldn't tie all these things together, but should continue to offer them as separate services. That makes sense to me. I'd hate to have to subscribe to all of those things just because I wanted one of them. But I don't think your objection holds up very well, because I'm suggesting that Microsoft should offer a perpetual license to Windows and Office for $100, which includes 1 year of all the updates, plus a couple of services that you can use or not. Still, getting Windows and Office for $100 isn't a bad deal. Continuing to use those services and continuing to receive updates would require that you pay the $100/year subscription.

Now, whether that exact pricing works out, I don't know, but I think it's a general model that would work for a lot of people, for both personal and business use. Speaking more generally, I think a lot of people are turned off by the idea of a "subscription" where their computer stops working when you stop paying a monthly fee, but the idea of paying a subscription to continue to receive updates is less objectionable. If you could wrap together most of the services that people actually want, along with a subscription for continued updates, all under a single reasonable monthly/yearly fee, I think Microsoft would do well. But I think all the product activation and DRM, and making things expire when you don't pay... it all just creates more confusion and annoyances for personal users, and more headaches for IT personnel. And I also think they should provide basic security updates no matter what, insecure installs only make them look bad, and hacked machines cause problems for everyone online.

I wish people would understand that this response is a standard rhetorical technique. You see it happen all the time in various scandals and cover-ups. Essentially the aim is to diffuse the response by delaying it until people can be persuaded not to care.

A few years ago, if someone suggested that the CIA is torturing people, they'd be accused of being unpatriotic and paranoid. As the news starts to come up, defenders change their message to, "Hold on there. There are some unproven allegations, but you should wait until all the evidence is in before getting upset." They drag the whole thing out for years, and when the evidence is in, the defenders say, "Well we knew all of this years ago. Why are you upset now?!"

Lots of things follow this pattern. CIA torture, NSA spying, unethical/illegal actions leading to the financial system meltdown, invading other countries, global climate change, and even Clinton sexually harassing White House interns. It's very often those same three steps: (a) Deny it happened; (b) Admit something happened, but ask people to wait before passing judgment; (d) Delay; and finally (e) Admit the whole thing, but claim that the time for a response has already passed.

It's intentional, and people will keep doing it because it works.