Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#41

Post by boznz » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 6:49 PM UTC

Fifteen years ago every piece of hardware supported windows and windows was arguably more friendly for casual developers than Linux with things like Visual Basic and Delphi so a lot of novel and very custom software was written (guilty as charged). The good thing is that most of these still work, as windows has thankfully not fucked with the underlying Win32 libraries. The bad thing is that this one piece of custom software was probably written by someone of retirement age and it is probably what's running the company.

This is just life, the same will happen to your latest wiz-bang program you wrote today in ten or fifteen years, good companies insist on the source code and/or plan for obsolescence, others become cash cows for the software industry or die.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#42

Post by TitaRusell » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 6:49 PM UTC

bikelang wrote: post #5

I agree that a cheap MacBook and the steam machine are presenting a perfect storm situation for windows to lose some serious marketshare with casual/consumer users. Itll be interesting to see how or even if Microsoft reacts to this.

Microsoft dropping the ball on smartphones is their real problem.

Desktops are on the way out for consumers.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#43

Post by fooqux » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 6:49 PM UTC

qgin wrote: post #17

Nobody seems to want to use Copilot, but Microsoft is in a great position when AGI "drop-in office workers" become a thing. They can just provision however many virtual coworkers to a Microsoft Teams instance and you'll be handing off documents and chatting with the AGI workers pretty much as you would any other remote worker. Microsoft doesn't have to be first or best here. Just owning the plumbing of so many presen…

> Microsoft is in a great position when AGI "drop-in office workers" become a thing

While I don't disagree with you here, that's a helluva big bet. It'll have to happen soon enough that other companies aren't able to pivot in time, and despite what Altman says, I just don't see it happening at that timescale.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#44

Post by Anonbrit » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 6:50 PM UTC

eviks wrote: post #36

> Considering Apple’s focus on consumers first What does it mean specifically for the OS? What were the exciting improvements you've noticed that would entice that switch? Is the liquid glass design that is making it harder to read text "costumer first"? > The third thing is gamers. Gamers use Windows largely because they have to But also not entirely to game, so the case for an OS where almost all the basics/apps ar…

Most people I know under 30 are either running games or chrome. Word-processing etc (the odd tune they need it) is all in the browser

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#45

Post by wongarsu » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 6:50 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #14

The web/webapps/mobile helped lead to this era of "desktop PCs" (to include laptops) where the browser mattered more than the OS. It allowed Apple to become resurgent in the desktop market because OS compatibility mattered less than ever. It's not weird that it led to Apple regaining _some_ market share because clearly there was demand for the Apple/MacOS/OS X experience that may have been tempered by incompatibility…

Apple is at least in part operating like they are a fashion brand. Functionality and usability are secondary to looks. Both in their devices and their software. It's hard to argue they aren't successful with that.

It probably helps that Microsoft has also abandoned usability, just for very different reasons

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#46

Post by raincole » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 6:51 PM UTC

liveoneggs wrote: post #38

amarant wrote: post #22

2026 will finally be the year of Linux on the desktop!

I am, unironically, considering this for my dad's computer: https://chromeos.google/products/chromeos-flex/

Because Windows 11 has ads in the start menu, we decided to switch to an OS made by the biggest online ad company. /s

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#47

Post by qgin » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 6:51 PM UTC

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #30

qgin wrote: post #17

Nobody seems to want to use Copilot, but Microsoft is in a great position when AGI "drop-in office workers" become a thing. They can just provision however many virtual coworkers to a Microsoft Teams instance and you'll be handing off documents and chatting with the AGI workers pretty much as you would any other remote worker. Microsoft doesn't have to be first or best here. Just owning the plumbing of so many presen…

> when AGI "drop-in office workers" become a thing How many more weeks? Also, is this before or after flying cars?

Looking like 2028-2030 but it's a moving target.

Since we're basically getting flying cars next year at the World Cup, I guess it's going to be after flying cars.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#48

Post by d3Xt3r » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 6:52 PM UTC

nobodyandproud wrote: post #20

crazygringo wrote: post #9

> Number one is that Microsoft just does not feel like a consumer tech company at all anymore. At least in terms of Windows/Office, Microsoft has never been a consumer tech company. They've always been focused on corporate sales. There have always been consumer-focused side areas, from Bob to Encarta to MSN to Xbox. But Microsoft's bread and butter has always been corporations. I don't understand how the author think…

They’re angering corporations too. Those risk-adverse behemoths are slowly coming to terms with Microsoft breaking their platforms and bread-and-butter applications.

Indeed. Previously, every Patch Tuesday we used to pray that nothing would break in that patch cycle. Now we expect that things _will_ break, but hope that that whatever Microsoft breaks won't affect us, or is something minor, or gets patched quickly.

Also, thelast few months have been a nightmare for or us as we were doing our migrations to Windows 11 and found how much of a steaming pile of poo it was - I mean, we already had an inclination, but it was even worse than the rumours. Never seen a shittier OS in my life, and that's even after considering Windows ME.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#49

Post by eviks » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 6:53 PM UTC

IAmNotACellist wrote: post #16

A more interesting question to me (and one where MSFT employees here would have some insight) is to what degree is Windows' recent ABYSMAL fucking quality the result of AI, outsourcing, or bad management? You can also feel the difference in healthy employees vs. unhealthy, when you switch between something like VSCode (polished, fast, intelligent UI, not buggy, consistently improves) and Explorer (paleolithically slo…

> VSCode (polished, fast, ...) and Explorer (paleolithically slow,

In what world is VSCode fast when its startup time is multiples of Explorer (which had in recent news decided to preload itself to mask that issue) and they are the result of exactly the same fundamental shift from native to web native

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#50

Post by mschuster91 » Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 6:54 PM UTC

fooqux wrote: post #43

qgin wrote: post #17

Nobody seems to want to use Copilot, but Microsoft is in a great position when AGI "drop-in office workers" become a thing. They can just provision however many virtual coworkers to a Microsoft Teams instance and you'll be handing off documents and chatting with the AGI workers pretty much as you would any other remote worker. Microsoft doesn't have to be first or best here. Just owning the plumbing of so many presen…

> Microsoft is in a great position when AGI "drop-in office workers" become a thing While I don't disagree with you here, that's a helluva big bet. It'll have to happen soon enough that other companies aren't able to pivot in time, and despite what Altman says, I just don't see it happening at that timescale.

> While I don't disagree with you here, that's a helluva big bet.

And yet, one that Microsoft has the best chances. Apple has all but zero presence in BigCorp outside of social media and creative teams. Google has its Workspaces thing plus its web wannabe-equivalents to Office, but that's it. And AWS is an infrastructure provider.

Microsoft in contrast? They're everywhere and most importantly, whatever is in Office 365 automatically has the "compliant" checkboxes ticked for auditors. And MS can easily ride the time until AGI or something coming reasonably close to it is marketable on that moat.