Resistance is futile.

" I could care less "
That does seem to be an Americanism. And to others it may appear as the opposite of what was intended.

I'm just grateful that Slashdot is a written medium, and so I don't have to hear the way our American brethren pronounce "niche".
Because regarding that bugbear of mine: I could care less.

I do appreciate your measured response.
I investigated it a little at the time, and what I found was similar to what you wrote (i.e. licensing issue).

>> Having to sign in to an online store ... to attach a payment to a non-free app, is pretty normal practice.

Except they don't require payment, they just want the customer to sign-in with a Synology account.
And this isn't isolated: Synology has been increasingly nudging customers towards Synology accounts.

To me, this is similar to Microsoft requiring an online account to setup Windows.
It started off entirely optional ... and has gradually become increasingly difficult to avoid.

It's the *trend* that concerns me, not the individual steps.
And I don't like the pattern I'm seeing from Synology. (Nor Microsoft, for that matter.)

This move with the hard drives has certainly soured my opinion of Synology, which was previously quite high.

It's more concerning in that it betrays a mindset:
that this is just one step towards monetising the user base a.k.a. enshittification.

A couple of years back they required one to sign-in to a Synology account to access existing functionality after the upgrade:

Version: 7.1-42661
15. Starting from Advanced Media Extensions 2.0.0, users must sign in to their Synology Accounts in DSM to install HEVC and AAC codecs in the package, which allows for the playback of certain file formats in multimedia packages and Surveillance Station.

Because I prefer privacy.

Doesn't WhatsApp allow users to back-up and export chat history? Those would be useful. In contrast to Apple's congenital obsession with gilded cages.

Personally, I'd be more interested in cloud backups being available in Signal, as rumoured

>> manufacturers will classify appliances as something else to get around it

Where there's a will, there's a way.

I find government departments (that enforce laws or regulations) are happy to consider that something is "substantially x" when it suits their aims. Of course, they're also happy to look the other way when it doesn't.

How about 0.5 feet ? NOAA.gov

>> I also don't agree with governments issuing fiats to tech companies to influence their design or function.

This likely depends on one's political / economic leaning.

There are, variously, particular rules regarding companies once they reach a certain size (> n employees) or market share (monopoly, or monopolistic) amongst other things.

If a jurisdiction demands that a phone manufacturer provides side-loading, I have no qualms with that being enforced.
I also have no problem with the manufacturer pulling-out of that market.

However, I do understand your hesitation. For example, I also don't like the idea of backdoors.
I don't think our representatives always do, or say, the correct thing: Laws of mathematics don’t apply here, says Australian PM (An unfortunate quote ... he was generally a decent PM)

Black humour.

>> in the winter it was dark until about 11am

Well that makes the wee hours not so wee !

>> For me at home I couldn't give a flying **** about the cloud. For me at work, I can't imaging going back to working without it.

Giddy-yup. Me in a nutshell.

At work: my productivity would dip without the complete O365 suite â" along with OneDrive integration.
At home? I de-Officed my machine earlier this year and started using LibreOffice and Thunderbird.

Do I miss Office? Yeah, sometimes.
It's not the cost that I resented as much as Microsoft relentlessly trying to increase their ad revenue at the expense of my privacy: insisting on accounts, introducing ads where they don't belong, ignoring preferences / settings (looking at you, OneDrive and Edge), generally trying to get more of MY data.

Let me guess:
the bonus is based on (e.g.) Jan - Dec, but payroll / annual reviews need a few months to calculate entitlements. So you *have* to remain an employee until March / April to be entitled to the payment. Even more sleazy.

Your last sentence really caught my eye. Reminded me of ⦠me:
âoeWell enough that the next time Microsoft pisses me off I will make the switch permanently on my primary machine as well.â

Iâ(TM)ve been saying that for years, but never made the jump. Kind of like putting-up with an abusive partner: hoping against hope that theyâ(TM)ll mend their ways. If they just changed a little bit they could be so good !

When Apple releases the M4 MacBook Pro Iâ(TM)m going to grab that and dump Microsoftâ(TM)s ass. In preparation, this year I removed all traces of Office from my primary machine and migrated to LibreOffice. Still using Visual Studio, though. Theyâ(TM)ve got me there. I canâ(TM)t get away from that family !

>> replacing my coworkers and me with it is completely out of the question

No, itâ(TM)s not. Theyâ(TM)ll likely try, and enshittify your workplace in the process. And theyâ(TM)ll get kudos from their bosses for reducing headcount by âoexâ.