Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

ghacks.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 82 posts

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#61

Post by FragmentShader »

iamkonstantin wrote: post #32
FragmentShader wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to pay my bills today, not whenever the professional software I use gets released on Linux. Also, the Linux experience is so miserable that if Windows were to die, I'd just switch to MacOS tbh.

And get confronted with Apple’s version of enshittification? The grass is not as green as it used to be in cupertino world.

I have a M1 laptop so I kinda suffered some aspects of MacOS. But, when I have a problem, it just feels like this:

Windows: Chances are the problem doesn't exist.

Linux: Spend 6 hours to fix it.

MacOS: Spend 50$ for software that fixes it.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#62

Post by segasaturn »

AlexandrB wrote: post #9
whalesalad wrote: post #5

Considering retail for the OS is $199 I find it insane the way Microsoft is pushing such a dystopian freemium model on their users. When you buy a new computer with Windows, the manufacturer pays Microsoft for that license too (obj not the same cost as a retail one, but a cost nonetheless) Meanwhile essentially every version of macOS is free (gotta go back a few years to find retail upgrade copies, which are still fa…

macOS being free is sleight of hand. The cost is just baked into the margin on their hardware. Maybe if you could run macOS on hardware of your choice (i.e. "hackintosh") it would be an apples-to-apples comparison.

GNU/Linux is Free as in Freedom, Windows is free as in free beer, MacOS is free as in free airplane pretzels.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#63

Post by whalesalad »

tracker1 wrote: post #7

And every article like this just convinces me that switching my personal desktop to Linux a couple years ago was the right choice. I do wish that Affinity or another PS competitor had a good Linux or at least WINE support. Seems to be one of the greater gaping holes imo.

Photoshop is the one kicker for me, too. Nothing comes close. GIMP is a dumpster fire.

Lately I have been doing pretty well with Figma though. Been daily driving Debian 12 w/ KDE for about a year now and it has been rock solid and quite enjoyable.

I never imagined I would ever admit this - but I find myself frustrated by the latency of macOS on my Macbook Air more and more after how instantaneous certain things are on my workstation.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#64

Post by qwerpy »

iamkonstantin wrote: post #32
FragmentShader wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to pay my bills today, not whenever the professional software I use gets released on Linux. Also, the Linux experience is so miserable that if Windows were to die, I'd just switch to MacOS tbh.

And get confronted with Apple’s version of enshittification? The grass is not as green as it used to be in cupertino world.

Apple has a long ways to go before they get to Microsoft levels of enshittification. The News app has ads and premium-only content mixed into the content you do have access to. They know I don't pay for News so stop showing me the articles I can't read, please. I know that's the whole point. They want me to get annoyed and pay for it. And I think there are random nudges throughout the OS to pay for iCloud. But it's a far cry from the ads and clickbait and unwanted notifications and resetting user preferences (Edge browser, etc.) that Windows does.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#65

Post by tombert »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #13

The more people who use Linux, the more software will be available to use. If you are in any way technical, do society a favor and switch to Linux.

So much stuff has moved to the web anyway that I think a very large percentage of people could move to Linux and it would largely have no negative effects at all.

My sister in law, who is not technical in any way, ran Ubuntu for multiple years (to keep using a Macbook that didn't get any more updates) because virtually everything she did was in the browser anyway; she did her homework with Google Docs, she listened to music with YouTube Music, she talked to her friends with Google Chat or Signal, she did her taxes with TurboTax online.

We can (correctly) complain about how Google is eating the internet, and that's fair, but at least in the regards of making Linux viable, Google has (probably inadvertently) done a very good job.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#66

Post by ryandrake »

freeone3000 wrote: post #18
hecanjog wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MacOS does show advertisements for the iCloud services.

I think… in settings? Once below Apple ID, if you’re not signed in, and once by iCloud. There also are AppleID and iCloud direct integrations, which can be thought of as advertisements. And if you are using iCloud and there’s not enough space, you’ll see a banner on every app that uses iCloud (except Finder) that hey, there’s not enough space. I think this is an advertisement, but it’s for a service people might actu…

> I think this is an advertisement, but it’s for a service people might actually want

I don't think that's what makes Apple's in-OS ads acceptable. Whether somebody "actually wants" iCould or whatever, is dependent on that person. What makes Apple's in-OS ads acceptable are that they are for Apple services that are totally in-context to where you are in the OS: an "ad" for iCloud appears in the Settings dialog hierarchy where iCloud settings would normally be. Also, they are really subtle and hard to notice, tastefully integrated with the OS/color scheme.

Unlike Microsoft's ham-fisted ads that are in your face, thrown into the Start menu without any context, for services that have nothing to do with what you're doing, and design-wise garish and tacky: I'm in the middle of launching a text editor, and Microsoft shouts "BUY CANDY CRUSH LOLOLOLOL" with a blinding ad.

Big difference.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#67

Post by dole »

mysterydip wrote: post #41
dingnuts wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

excuses excuses spoken like someone who hasn't used Linux in a decade. The experience is much better in Linux than the other OSes these days If you need to use software in Windows for work that's one thing, but you probably don't need that software on every personal device and your opinion about using Linux is definitely just your opinion

Even if you do need Windows for your software, projects like Wine are making progress every day. There's only a few things I use that don't work out of the box, and for that I have a stripped down Windows VM.

Learning how to spin up a Windows VM in Linux was what finally gave me the courage to take the training wheels off and abandon Windows as my daily driver, after decades.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#68

Post by ryandrake »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #11
freedomben wrote: post #2

Unfortunately, I think ads are going to get worse before they get better. The huge hotness in marketing right now is using AI and the trove of data to write personalized ad copy for every recipient. Right now it's expensive enough that not a ton of people are doing it, and the ones who are are only targeting a small niche of people, but I expect that the economics will improve quickly. Given Microsoft's full dive int…

I'm convinced marketing is one of the most harmful professions to society. Yes, some amount of marketing is important, so people know who you are and what you do. But the number of times our marketing department asked for creepy spyware tracking in order to "better serve our customers" makes me sick to my stomach.

Just to nit pick a little, because I don't want to paint the whole profession of Marketing with one terrible brush. These dystopian spyware-tracking-ads are just one of the "four P's" of Marketing: Promotion. And it's not even really Promotion in the traditional sense, it's something much more personally intrusive, not just at people's eyes but into their psychology. It's a two-way communication rather than a one-way "sales pitch." And the return communication (from us to the Marketer) is happening without our consent.

I think we need a fifth P or something: Psychologic Warfare? I don't know, I don't write the Marketing textbooks.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#69

Post by dole »

ryandrake wrote: post #66
freeone3000 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think… in settings? Once below Apple ID, if you’re not signed in, and once by iCloud. There also are AppleID and iCloud direct integrations, which can be thought of as advertisements. And if you are using iCloud and there’s not enough space, you’ll see a banner on every app that uses iCloud (except Finder) that hey, there’s not enough space. I think this is an advertisement, but it’s for a service people might actu…

> I think this is an advertisement, but it’s for a service people might actually want I don't think that's what makes Apple's in-OS ads acceptable. Whether somebody "actually wants" iCould or whatever, is dependent on that person. What makes Apple's in-OS ads acceptable are that they are for Apple services that are totally in-context to where you are in the OS: an "ad" for iCloud appears in the Settings dialog hierar…

The problem is that difference is shrinking. Compare the ad creep between Windows 7 and 11. Now, compare Apple's first party ads between iPhone 5 vs the current iOS (not familiar enough w MacOS). Apple Music's full screen modal ads suck but I guess it's better than forcing a U2 album on us. And the iCloud ads to upgrade your space may be "subtle and integrated with the colors and less garish," but they're not just in the Settings. I'm getting iCloud reminder emails and Notifications multiple times a day, it's not much better. MS's are more ham-fisted and garish, sure, but the sad thing is watching the enshittification of iOS and society's expectations also.

Re: Microsoft's Weather app now shows more ads

#70

Post by phaistra »

TheBozzCL wrote: post #21

I haven’t had to deal with nearly as much bullshit from Microsoft since I switched to AtlasOS, which is a trimmed down version of Windows. Then again, I know better than fully trusting a third-party patch for an operating system, of all things… so I only use that for games and absolutely nothing else. My main daily os at the moment is Manjaro.

First time I heard of Atlas OS. How is it different from Windows LTSC?
Post reply on HN