Earlier quoted context omitted.
My takeaway is that Microsoft has been trying to boil the frog, but slipped and turned the temperature up too quickly. They're retreating for now, but make no mistake that Recall will slowly trickle back into Windows under another name. Every major power broker wants something like Recall to become the norm - bosses to spy on their employees, governments to spy on their citizens/enemies, and tech CEO's to collect tra…
This is a very cynical take. I've not seen anything to make me think this feature is intended for surveillance as opposed to personal utility. The personal utility benefits are very clear to me - the problem is the ease with which malicious attackers might steal the data (if they can breach the system).
It's hard for me to imagine that Microsoft would implement a "watches everything you do" program if they didn't want to look at what it sees.
The entire internet, all of your personal information, every written text, and every photo uploaded to social media have been absorbed into these companies AI models, and they are all clamoring to one-up each other. They are going to acquire as much data as they can get their hands on, and this software is a clear way to do it.
Even the AI features in MS Paint will send your data to Microsoft for "content safety", even though the model runs locally. They're already setting the scene for what they plan to do with Recall.