Comment on Windows 12 May Require a Subscription
Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz 1 year agoI agree, corpo world is already 100% in subscription mode and consumers buy windows through OEM. If you buy OEM laptop, how would you sell subscription windows with it? I see it as a no go, it would force OEM laptops to be sold with Linux.
The article addresses literally all of your points. Installing windows would be free for oems so it’s actually good for them, and MS would probably offer a free tier with ads for end users who don’t want to pay.
To me that’s completely believable and sounds exactly like something MS would do.
Probably AD free+AI features are behind subscription, and in sense I would be Ok with it.
My guess is that MS will figure out a different approach. Maybe the enterprise versions are behind a subscription while the consumer version stays the way it currently is. They could also take the Apple approach. Offer a little bit of something for free (like iCloud) and charge if you want more of it. There could also be specific features that are not available if you don’t pay (like Apple Music). MS could offer a certain part of consumer windows for free, and charge for some other part, like advanced settings.
Corporate are already in subscription mode, pretty much all companies have some sort of per user subscription with MS. E3/E5/F3 etc licenses include windows+m365+office+defender etc.
AssPennies@lemmy.world 1 year ago
“SomeShittyAntivirus free for 12 months with purchase of this laptop!”
s/SomeShittyAntivirus/Windows/gHotzilla@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
What happens when the trial ends? Windows won’t load? Would brands like Dell/HP/Fujitsu/Acer really agree that, their customer service would be full of old people complaining that their laptop is not working.