Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows

That's a pretty clear dark pattern, no?

At the very least, it signals that Microsoft really doesn't want users creating offline accounts. Which is troubling, because their TOS for online accounts is quite onerous, and includes a couple of problematic restrictions, including a mandatory arbitration agreement.

If I was a Windows user who relied on local accounts this would be very worrying to me.

I understand correcting the title to be more accurate to the situation, but I think the discussion should be focused on how Microsoft is taking power away from users, and has business incentive to do so. I don't like that the greater tech community rallies behind Microsoft for doing some basic contributions to open source and then hand waves away moves like this.

Edit: the comment section has shifted and I'm less disappointed.

The online account is crap. I converted my offline account recently to the online one, just to see what's the difference.

The difference is that I cannot even set a password, it asks me to set up a PIN number to log in. Of course you can set it to accept letters in your PIN, so it can function as a regular password.

But what the hell is the point?

(In fact, I didn't set any PIN the first time and at the next reboot I had to log in with my Microsoft account password, which is decidedly more complicated that the not-very-secure one I use to log in my PC. Thank god I have a password manager on my phone.)

I agree it's a dark pattern. I've seen much worse dark patterns though, so it's hardly beyond that.

This seems like it is preparatory to removing it entirely.

It wouldn't be shocking if in 10 years you need a Microsoft account to use windows on a computer you don't have root access to that isn't allowed to run a non ms os or to distribute software that ms gets a 30% cut.

If it isn't so it will be because they don't think they can get away with it.