Linux

How bad is Microsoft?

Bad enough to be stay away from

They coined the term Embrace, Extend, Extinguish and they haven't stopped enforcing it. I haz not much faith on WSL and similar.

They tried to destroy linux and free/libre software, and when that didn't work, they started cornering the market and pushing for a move from "Free" to "Open Source." They also support SaaS model, and have made it next to impossible to get a new computer without their mediocre OS. On top of that, their OS is full of spyware, and is starting to become adware too.

But that all pales in comparison to the fact that you do not own your own OS: you can run Microsoft's OS, but you can't modify it or share it.

Oh, and this falls more in the realm of personal preference, but the deliberate lack of customizability is a real pain in the ass.

4/10 OS, only slightly better at disguising its capitalist greed than Apple.

How bad are we that M$ still has 75% market share on operation systems and office suites?

How bad is Microsoft?

Yes

Is this the circlejerk community of lemmy?

As a shareholder (which I'm not), it's absolutely amazing.

As a human being though... it's simple to look at the history of the company, from its inception based on nepotism and locking-down was hitherto the common good, to going from one place of monopoly (OS, app, cloud) to another (extending to whatever is trendy at the moment e.g XR with HoloLens, AI with OpenAI, etc).

It's IMHO one of the very worst thing that could have happened to humanity in terms of cognitive empowerment. Apple is not far behind but in terms of locking up an entire ecosystem but Microsoft, sadly, is doing it better.

To clarify what I mean is that Microsoft is the business embodiment of learned helplessness. Most people would shrug at the quality of software they provide, the price, etc ONLY because they are convinced, wrongfully so, that they are is no legitimate alternative. If users were actually able to chose, not being coerced into but properly chose, by experiencing alternatives, the World would be totally different. Instead of having computer users who feel an adversarial relationship to their devices, we would have a much stronger relation of "this is MY device" the same way a lot (not all) of people have a repair toolbox at home. They know they can try to fix something in THEIR home, even improve it. Most people understand it won't be easy, they might mess it up, but it's possible to try. Not in software, and that's entirely Microsoft "success". Maybe in an alternative reality others, like Apple, would have made that happen to, but in our reality I blame Microsoft, Bill Gates upbringing from his legal mindset father and well connected mother.

We could have a world were users own their devices, have a challenging yet empowering relationship to technology, starting with software, and instead we have exploitative learning helplnessness. So yes, Microsoft is that bad.

I like Micsrosofts office suite, but I hate virtually everything else. I got tired of their recent decisions and bought an Apple laptop, partly because I'm getting into iOS development and wanted that experience. But my other computer is dual booted with Fedora and Windows for when I absolutely need Windows, I'll swap over, bit rarely do I outside of some gaming.

I don't think about Microsoft at all mostly. I supported their stuff professionally in the past and friends/family but otherwise total avoidance. They own some big game studios so I probably use some of their products like Minecraft but I haven't used their operating systems or applications for decades and I dislike and distrust cloud services and theirs is no exception. All big companies tend to be the same. Try not to depend on any of them.

This thread teaches me that generally, most Linux people are looking at windows. Meanwhile Microsoft only thinks Windows is 16% of its business.

Basically, it seems, most Linux users do not think hard about Microsoft.

Why did you link to the Microsoft website?