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Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

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Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#11

Post by echelon »

Damn it all to hell.

I swore that since Nadella took over the helm that Microsoft was becoming a good force for the industry. There were so many positive moves. Linux, open source, Github improvements. Now I can see that it's all still classic "evil Microsoft" under the hood.

They're taking over our industry with Github/VSCode in the cloud. Microsoft payments injection in Edge taxes web commerce, and with their default browser shenanigans they're generally treating the web as something they own. They're monitoring and recording your Windows files and secrets and uploading them for analysis. Github Co-pilot is training on GPL code and aims to eventually replace us. Xbox has the worst DRM that requires always-online to play games you own. LinkedIn - there's never been much good to say here.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#13

Post by endisneigh »

Fundamentally it's just difficult to maintain the modern internet without advertising. You have content creators busting their backs with millions of hours of video and content for free, and hosted for free. Obviously there needs to be a way for all of that to be paid for.

Whether due to income equality, laziness, greed or something else, the vast majority of people aren't going to engage in micro transactions.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#14

Post by silisili »

jahnu wrote: post #7
netr0ute wrote: post #2

Every day since Windows 11's release, Microsoft is alienating people and indirectly making desktop Linux the better option.

I'm a software engineer and have many software engineering friends and acquaintances and still even in this group of people who are almost all at least comfortable with Linux hardly any use it for anything except work or learning. It's roughly a 50/50 split for the rest between Windows and macOS. So how can it be remotely plausible that Linux will become a mainstream desktop/laptop OS? Non IT workers also seem to fav…

I agree, but I've found it's more people doing what everyone else is doing, vs any real downside. I was screen sharing with someone recently who said 'thats cool, but I thought you used linux..'. They just thought linux was a terminal black screen I guess. Anyhow I showed them how I get around, work, some cool features, and they were sold enough to dual boot it.

I guess Desktop Linux's biggest hurdle is that most people have no idea it even exists, and there's zero advertising.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#15

Post by shmerl »

jahnu wrote: post #7
netr0ute wrote: post #2

Every day since Windows 11's release, Microsoft is alienating people and indirectly making desktop Linux the better option.

I'm a software engineer and have many software engineering friends and acquaintances and still even in this group of people who are almost all at least comfortable with Linux hardly any use it for anything except work or learning. It's roughly a 50/50 split for the rest between Windows and macOS. So how can it be remotely plausible that Linux will become a mainstream desktop/laptop OS? Non IT workers also seem to fav…

Simple. You need wider pre-install base. That's the only barrier.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#16

Post by zeusk »

capableweb wrote: post #8
jahnu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a software engineer and have many software engineering friends and acquaintances and still even in this group of people who are almost all at least comfortable with Linux hardly any use it for anything except work or learning. It's roughly a 50/50 split for the rest between Windows and macOS. So how can it be remotely plausible that Linux will become a mainstream desktop/laptop OS? Non IT workers also seem to fav…

> So how can it be remotely plausible that Linux will become a mainstream desktop/laptop OS? Because of time and inevitable changes happening to everything over time. Remember when Windows was nothing and everyone was using something else? Remember when macOS was nothing and everyone was using something else? Same thing can happen with Linux, or some other operating system. Sure, might take 10, 50, 100 years, but eve…

I think platforms have gotten to a complexity where starting from a clean state isn't as easy anymore. Just look at fuschia, I know it's been in "early" development since at least 2013 and there's not much to show for it.

Things get A LOT more complicated when you add localisation, accessibility, UI and all the other things we take for granted.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#17

Post by S_A_P »

Microsoft is on an interesting trajectory of late, but it also seems like there is some bifurcation as to what they're doing. On one hand they are trying to embrace Linux and pushing development tools forward, but on the other they are just making every slimy big tech type decision they can. I have my own personal axe to grind with them as they tricked my completely non tech savvy mother in law to upgrade her Surface to windows 11 and guess what? The freaking network driver doesn't work so it is now effectively bricked for her use case. She didnt want windows 11 and Im guessing just clicked all the highlighted options to "keep her computer up to date and safe". I found out the issue when we were in a location that only had slow satellite internet so she cant use her computer until she gets back to civilization and I can reload windows 10. Microsoft has created a tech support nightmare for me.

Seriously if any MS folks are reading this- you really have pretty much erased any goodwill I had towards you, but I suppose the ad revenue means you dont care.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#18

Post by FearlessNebula »

blinkingled wrote: post #4

Why? Windows 11 as an advertising business wasn't nasty enough for Microsoft? I installed it on one of my sparingly used machines and it's as blatant as it gets. The Edge push, all the installed crapware, the telemetry and God knows what else - either way it didn't feel like I was running my own OS - instead it felt like I was running a rented one at a Kinkos.

Worse than Windows 10? That already seemed pretty bad when I kept having to uninstall candy crush and somehow it kept coming back, and literal ads in the start menu.

How did they make it worse with Windows 11?

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#19

Post by FearlessNebula »

echelon wrote: post #11

Damn it all to hell. I swore that since Nadella took over the helm that Microsoft was becoming a good force for the industry. There were so many positive moves. Linux, open source, Github improvements. Now I can see that it's all still classic "evil Microsoft" under the hood. They're taking over our industry with Github/VSCode in the cloud. Microsoft payments injection in Edge taxes web commerce, and with their defau…

Wait what’s this about monitoring and record By files and secrets?

Also I think you might be mistaken about the Xbox DRM, they mentioned they’d be requiring always online prior to the launch of the Xbox one but as far as I know they never followed through after all the backlash they received.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#20

Post by franczesko »

Why Microsoft is pushing for its weakest link - the advertising business?

They missed the mobile train, hardly anyone uses Bing (even DuckDuckGo, which is based on their API, seems to be stagnant in terms of the daily query growth).

I find it difficult to connect the dots here.

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