• Microsoft recently threw a lifeline to consumers, offering alternatives to paying $30 for extended support for Windows 10
  • Public Interest Research Group thinks this doesn’t go far enough in terms of avoiding an impending e-waste calamity
  • The organization suggests Microsoft considers providing longer-term support for Windows 10, or relaxes the spec requirements for Windows 11
  • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I mean it’s the first bullet point. There is a path and MS provided it. MS wants to turn Windows into recurring revenue so they start charging $30/year for patches under the excuse of Win 11.

    • Nednarb44@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      $30 a year to start. If they are that enough people are willing to pay it, it will inevitability go up. Imagine paying $10-20 a month to use your operating system lol

      • imrighthere@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        Around 25 years ago, my hardware guy and I read a roadmap from microsoft. The bottom line was, they wanted to move back to a thin client model. They told everyone what they were going to do. You don’t have to imagine, they told everyone 25 years ago that this is what is coming. You will be paying monthly.

      • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Why did you jump from $30/year to $120-$240 a year? You seriously think Microsoft would just randomly quadruple (at least) the cost?

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          You seriously think they wouldn’t, if they thought they could get away with it?

          • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            There is no world where the retail cost of a software product was literally quadrupled based purely on demand, lol.

            Accept that it was a ridiculous exaggeration on your part.

            The funniest part of this is that it’s already ridiculous at the lowest end of the range you gave, but you went up to $240/year. “Oh yeah, if lots of people buy it, we’ll just 8x the price, surely that won’t torpedo the sales numbers”.

  • ordinarylove@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 days ago

    Trash article to boot, if you read it and saw they were quoting another article the whole time, why didn’t you post the primary source?

  • Zephorah@discuss.online
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    2 days ago

    Linux.

    That said, it’s not for everyone. I don’t want to be tech support for relatives who can’t figure out how to use AirPods or how not download more bloatware during the course of general home computer use.

    Needing one patch for one thing would mean a new computer because “nothing works” for at least one relative.

    • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      this right here is ultimately why I haven’t moved my relatives to Mint. It usually works but, about time it doesn’t I don’t want to have to explain to someone who doesn’t know what a browser is, how to run commands on the terminal or how to find an error log.

      • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
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        2 days ago

        Yeah there’s a huge difference between “works 98% of the time” and “works 99.8%” of the time, even though they are both “works most of the time”.

        • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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          2 days ago

          i will however point out that the 0.2% of the time that windows doesn’t work has in my experience been it refusing to use the perfectly functional ethernet connection with absolutely no way to interrogate what it thinks is wrong, then i plug the same cable into a linux laptop and it works perfectly fine

          • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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            1 day ago

            Haha, yes, with windows, you don’t correct the errant setting, you reset the network settings and try again.

          • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
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            1 day ago

            Funny ethernet was the most common issue with Linux at a previous workplace. For some reason it would only get like 10 Mbps. Buggy driver presumably. I’m not sure they ever solved it (I had a Mac.)

            We’re talking about normal people here so they don’t really have the option of debugging it either. They can only Google for other people’s solutions or try resetting/rebooting everything. So although on Linux it’s technically possible to fix any issue (e.g. on Windows leaving a playstation controller plugged in prevents sleep and there’s nothing I can do to fix it), in practice on Linux there’s nothing normal people can do to fix that sort of stuff either.

    • StitchInTime@piefed.social
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      2 days ago

      I’ve been considering putting a parent on Fedora Kinoite. Less to break, and they understand the App Store concept so just using flatpacks isn’t far fetched for them.

      (edit: parent, not patent. Curse you autocorrect!)