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Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

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Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#141

Post by AnthonyMouse »

sedatk wrote: post #93

> The only thing of note they have added to Windows in the last five years is Copilot That's a quite unfair take, especially when it fails to compare it with what things of note Linux distros have added over the last five years. Valve made Windows emulation better, yes. That's it. What else? Actually, I wouldn't even call Copilot a thing of note. It's just ChatGPT-in-a-popup at the moment. A real thing of note is WSL…

> Hybrid-sleep

Linux supports hybrid sleep. It might not be enabled by default because if you have a lot of RAM it has a tendency to burn out consumer SSDs. Consider what happens if you have 64GB of RAM, a 512GB consumer SSD that supports 100 full drive writes in total and you enter into hybrid sleep twice a day for three years.

> Ability to enable FDE post-installation

Copy entire filesystem to backup. This isn't even a step because you were already doing it, right? Enable FDE and copy it back.

These ones are just Windows defect workarounds:

> "reset this PC" functionality

> a built-in anti-malware

> Running x86 apps on AArch64 performantly

Windows messes itself up on a regular basis, requiring you to reset it; this is rare on stable Linux distributions and even then "reset this PC" is really just copying the user's documents and reinstalling the OS, which nobody cares about having a one-press button to do when they're not having to do it all the time.

Linux has functional package managers that people actually use, which makes the default way to install software be the one that isn't likely to introduce you to malware.

And the package managers recompile the software for whatever architecture you're using so you don't need to emulate a different one.

> Touch/Face login

I think people have tried to add this and the users went out of their way to remove it again. "Have the machine record your biometric data" is creepy and the security is bad because people leave their fingerprints on everything and post pictures of their face on the internet.

> Fast fractional HiDPI scaling

X has legacy issues with this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27009035

Wayland supports it.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#142

Post by dspillett »

sedatk wrote: post #93

> The only thing of note they have added to Windows in the last five years is Copilot That's a quite unfair take, especially when it fails to compare it with what things of note Linux distros have added over the last five years. Valve made Windows emulation better, yes. That's it. What else? Actually, I wouldn't even call Copilot a thing of note. It's just ChatGPT-in-a-popup at the moment. A real thing of note is WSL…

> an extremely polished web browser, clipboard history, Windows Sandbox, screen recording, OCR, automatic private info redaction, Markdown support in Notepad and many more. None of those exists on most distros.

That is simply wrong. Some of them might be a package install away rather than there by default, but they are hardly features that Windows pioneered…

> automatic private info redaction

With regard to that, I wasn't aware of a direct end user feature for that in Windows. There are tools for it in Office, and from a programmers PoV in .Net, but these are things that will continue even if Windows gets canned because it is a tech debt problem: Office is still a cash cow and .Net is via VS/VSCode and funnelling people into Azure.

> - "reset this PC" functionality

Maybe not as a one-click, but just re-follow the installation instructions…

> - a built-in anti-malware

Good point, though it is less needed due to most users installing via OS package repos which offers some friction to malware installation. Individual services that particularly need it have support for it though (mail servers and such). This might become a bigger issue if the use of “curl -> bash” as an installation or quick-run method keeps gaining traction.

> - Touch/Face login

I'm a refusenik there so I don't care about that one - biometric are bad for authentication/authorisation as they can't be easily revoked! And I'm sure I've seen it done so it is at least available.

> - Ability to enable FDE post-installation

Valid, ish, but where FDE is required commercially it is going to be done on first install anyway, the same for most home users that care enough. And conversion is possible after-the-fact, just not in as automated a manner as with Windows.

> - Hybrid-sleep

Though while we are talking about that, proper hibernate has been broken on Windows on many laptops for some time.

> - Fast fractional HiDPI scaling

I can't comment on that, it isn't something I would need. Though it is worth pointing out that a great many applications on Windows don't handle HiDPI well anyway, especially when you have different scaling factors on different screens. This is the same on any OS I think.

> - Running x86 apps on AArch64 performantly

Again completely out of my wheelhouse so I can't really comment. Again, this feels like a niche issue for consumer use cases ATM - the situation may change quickly as demand increases.

> (like shoving Microsoft accounts, Teams, and anything Electron-based down our throats)

And bloody “AI”. They've put it in notepad…

Thankyou the Sirius Cybernetics Marketing Division!

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#143

Post by RossBencina »

wongarsu wrote: post #45
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

A luxury fashion brand. High quality goods, yet the aesthetics change over time so that the style conscious keep buying the latest to stay on trend. This doesn't apply to all users of course, there are other methods to nudge buying the latest for other personas.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#144

Post by frizlab »

samdoesnothing wrote: post #136
encom wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has famously been form over function almost since their inception.

This is true, with the caveat that their function is also best in class. And I mean yeah, they make gorgeous devices, but even if they were ugly id still choose them because they also work better than any alternatives.

Well said. (An upvote was not enough.)

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#145

Post by spacechild1 »

liuliu wrote: post #25
blitz_skull wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Apple Stan, I don’t understand what you’re referring to. MacOS is light years ahead of Windows in so many arenas, I’m not really sure what you could be referring to when you say “stagnation”. Every OS ever released has issues at launch, not sure if that’s what you mean by “regression”. But man… windows has been garbage for the better part of 2 decades now.

Windows 7 is the last good one. And that is only... Oh, almost 20 years ago. Never mind.

Windows 10 Pro is actually a pretty decent OS. It brought quite a few major improvements over Windows 7 and I can't really think of any notable downsides.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#146

Post by mrweasel »

bitmasher9 wrote: post #8

No, consumers are not tech debt to Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft is shifting away from consumer technology. The difference is Microsoft is squeezing every last drop of profit from consumers on their way out. That’s not debt, that’s an asset. In 25 years Microsoft will be similar to Oracle. Maybe they’ll have investments in some consumer brands, but largely they will be selling to enterprises and governments.

This seems like a more reasonable take. What I'm wondering is "Where will consumers go?"

They won't be shifting to Apple in any large numbers, many aren't willing to pay the price Apple is asking for a laptop. More and more I'd say that the average consumer if going to either use their work laptop, or their phone, for all their personal computing needs. Other that gamers, and the few of us who actually think that computers are fun (or at least they used to be), why would the average person buy a computer? My personal experience is that especially women just handle everything on their big ass phone anyway.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#147

Post by typewithrhythm »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #124
pezezin wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been hearing the same for the last 20 years, if not longer, and yet the consumer computer remains strong.

Absolutely no one said consumer computing was going away in 2005. What were they supposed to be replaced with?

Before the AI stuff it seemed people assumed everything would get smaller and more portable continuously.

Not consumer computing, but desktop computers would disappear.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#148

Post by NegativeK »

d3Xt3r wrote: post #23
reilly3000 wrote: post #7

IDK I started running Bazzite on my workstation after Win11 died on me a couple weeks ago, and if it is the premier experience for Linux desktop gaming then we aren’t there yet. It is great as far as distros go, don’t get me wrong. But WiFi dies after waking from sleep, and bluetooth worked once then died. I had to hack on it for a bit, then do it again with immutable OS patterns in mind. MS is certainly leaving an o…

> But WiFi dies after waking from sleep, and bluetooth worked once then died. That sounds like a hardware compatibility bug to me and not Bazzite's fault - I don't have those issues on my ThinkPad Z13, nor on my GPD Win Mini 2024.

I both 100% agree with you and also don't think our opinion matters.

The general consumer isn't going to hear "the manufacturer hasn't upstreamed stable drivers to the kernel" and suddenly stop blaming Linux if the hardware works in Windows.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#149

Post by Jare »

munificent wrote: post #86
blitz_skull wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Apple Stan, I don’t understand what you’re referring to. MacOS is light years ahead of Windows in so many arenas, I’m not really sure what you could be referring to when you say “stagnation”. Every OS ever released has issues at launch, not sure if that’s what you mean by “regression”. But man… windows has been garbage for the better part of 2 decades now.

The question is not whether MacOS is ahead of Windows. As an Apple user since the Apple IIe, I agree it's still the best OS by a mile. But that has basically always been true, at least since Mac OS X. (I liked the earlier OSes too, but they really did crash all the time and have no memory protection, so arguably Windows had some compelling advantages.) The interesting question is whether recent MacOS releases are ahe…

> it's still the best OS by a mile.

I wish I could disagree, but Microsoft won't let me thanks to their determination and speed in destroying what was good about Windows.

Right now I find myself forced to use macos for iOS dev, and Windows for gaming-adjacent stuff. For the first time in 33 years, I truly wish I could just have Linux everywhere.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#150

Post by treis »

wongarsu wrote: post #45
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

I think the HN crowd and the public at large have different ideas of usability. The "I want to save the file on my computer that I own" resonates with us. But there are a lot of advantages to a mobile like experience. There's no viruses, you never lose files, apps don't lock up your device, and so on.

The problem isn't really the experience being something like devices as a service. It's that the providers are a rent seeking duopoly.

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