@elmiko@mastodon.technology they're expensive and fragile (as companies). It's good that we have them but it's not enough
@m0xee @elmiko@mastodon.technology exactly how would that work, when the largest companies and governments on earth are supporting Microsoft?
@tindall @elmiko It already worked! MS is far from being a friend of free software, but MS we have today is a shadow of its former self. I remember the days when there was no Purism, no System 76, no linux support for most hardware — chances were good that even your wired network adapter won't work. And MS could shove just about anything down your throat.
It's not like that anymore. As average Joe moves to mobile MS is close to being irrelevant.
@tindall @elmiko And MS doesn't feed on support from governments and enterprises, MS exists off your money. Not directly, but still. So that is how it would work — buy a computer that comes with linux. Tell the market what you want instead of adapting to it yourself by buying a system designed for Windows and installing Linux on it. Capitalism kinda works in this case. Even HP has models like Dev One which comes with Linux — looks like a decent piece of hardware to me 🤷
@m0xee @elmiko@mastodon.technology this is factually incorrect in just about every way.
@m0xee @elmiko@mastodon.technology Microsoft makes most of its money from enterprises. companies generally do not give much of a shit about what consumers want because, especially in this space, they can dictate what's available, and they choose to make the things that are most profitable to them available. People who care about this make up a small minority of consumers at most.
You are being hopelessly optimistic here.
@tindall @elmiko I think I digressed and didn't make a point. You are right, consumer market is not the only thing keeping them afloat. But we do not want to kill MS off completely, do we? 😅
We just want them to stop influencing consumer market by pushing Windows aggressively, I think we can. They gave up on Edge and went with their Chrome clone, they gave up on Windows 10 Mobile and went with Android. They can still sell their hardware running Windows and have their enterprise cake, no problem!
@tindall @elmiko You are right, it does make most money from enterprises, but if you take a look at revenue structure you'll see that "cloud" stuff is a huge part of it. They are changing their business model precisely because you can't stay profitable just by selling Windows and Office licenses anymore.
Windows is still a major player in education, but MS is jumping through hoops to prevent Chromebooks from eating into their market share.
True, I am optimistic, but I'm not unreasonable.