All I want is to be able to give companies my money in exchange for not being spied on, manipulated, or locked into some walled garden. I can't for my OS - I have to use free gnu/Linux because everyone else treats me like crap. Is my money not good enough for them? This is getting absurd
It's the same direction they go when they desperately push subscription licenses (see: Office 365) They want a business model less dependent on people replacing their PCs every three years.
I don't doubt they see a rapidly approaching future of management saying "these computers are more than adequate for office work and web browsing, so we won't replace them until they physically fail in 5+ years." It's an easier and easier argument to make, especially when we're running out of easy, cheap across-the-board performance boosts. (Office and Chrome don't run that much better on a new 32-core Threadripper than on a second-generation i5)