[A]n INI configuration file in the Windows Canary channel, discovered by German website Deskmodder, includes references to a “Subscription Edition,” “Subscription Type,” and a “subscription status.”
Honestly OneDrive is actually very good as far as cloud storage platforms go. It just works. I paid for a subscription for a few years.
But starting around the 1000th time Microsoft tried to install even more bloatware I started looking for alternatives. For the low low price of “spend a few minutes learning about Tailscale” and buying a few extra hard drives, I’ve got 24TB of storage. My most important stuff gets encrypted locally and backed up to B2. I use Immich to manage my photos, so now I dropped my Google Drive subscription as well. Still on the fence about Nextcloud’s office suites but LibreOffice works great.
The only reason I still use Win11 is because gaming on Linux still has some issues with the games I play.
I doubt that Windows 12 itself will require a subscription. There will probably be a subscription for all the AI trash Micro$oft has been implementing into the OS.
Microsoft: “Windows 12 is free but all our great built-in apps like Candy Crush, Linkedin, and MegaStomp are unavailable without a subscription.”
Me: “Yup.”
Microsoft: “But if you don’t subscribe, you’ll miss out on hot celebrity gossip and the latest fashion news! And you won’t be able to use Bing AI to find great deals on amazing products from our trusted corporate partners!”
Microsoft: Sorry, but your current subscription level does not allow for the installation of unauthorized 3rd party software. Click here to upgrade your subscription and enjoy those great benefits.
Microsoft would be as stupid as your typical League of Legends player for going down that route. Doing this would be an own-goal and would give Linux market share instantly.
Please don’t make me go back to Linux. Linux has become an unusable clusterfuck of bugs, poorly implemented trash, and garbage over the last several years and after using it since the late 90s through a few years back when it was good, I’ve recently decided to free myself from it because I couldn’t take it any more. I’ve accepted that Windows is the only OS that has itself together these days (fuck Apple and its trash, overpriced, hardware-tied OS, fuck the extremely limited ChromeOS, fuck NODRIVERS *BSD, and especially goddamn fuck horrible user interface crappy system mobile OSes), so if Microsoft makes some shit moves to make their OS unusable, I’m just going to throw all the computers in the trash and go live in the wilderness in a shack chopping wood.
Guaranteed this is just some enterprise-level shit someone found and decided to publish for clickbait, though, so I’m not too worried. Too.
I would assume that the subscription they found is similar to existing subscription models for enterprise like E5, which includes Windows 11. I doubt this will get to the consumer level.
For a lot of people, yeah. But everyone assumed that the year of FOSS media software would come with Adobe Creative Cloud, but most people just grumbled and paid it anyway.
Most people would probably end up paying the subscription rather than relearning everything they already know. It may have long term impacts, but, like… I don’t think this would make the average person switch to Linux. If any migration happens I’d expect more people to switch to Macs than Linux over time because that’s more of a mainstream option.
That said there’s lots of interesting stuff going on in the Linux world right now, and it’s slowly but surely becoming a more interesting option for a lot of people. Valve’s work on Proton / Linux in general is pretty huge. I still think you’d need a huge marketing push to convince the average person (which people on Lemmy are not) to install Linux themselves, or prefer buying a laptop with Linux pre-installed, though. It could happen eventually, and has happened in special cases (like the Steam Deck)… But short term I think most people are just going to pay a yearly subscription rather than upend their entire computing life.
Yeah, I use Linux full time and have always used unixy operating systems and have never really used windows. So, like, sure, I think a lot of people could switch to Linux and be perfectly happy… but I’m under no delusions that people will and wouldn’t just pay a little more for a windows license instead. There’s probably a good chunk of people (particularly here) who would be more on the edge and willing to just drop the windows in this situation… but I doubt the average computer user is dying to try Gentoo in the event that Microsoft charges a subscription fee, haha.
Although that said… Microsoft is trying to take some market share back from ChromeOS and iPadOS in the education world, and I can’t imagine schools devoting any budget to Windows rentals.
Depends how Microsoft handles education licenses. I think historically they’ve been pretty good about giving university students licenses for free, and if they consider the education sector important enough (which they probably should) I am certain they could provide generous terms. If the schools don’t have to pay for the licenses I’m not sure they would bother switching off of windows at least. It will be interesting to see how the ChromeOS dominance in education plays out in the future, though!
Don’t write it off just because some users are obnoxious about it. I use Linux myself, but I just sidestep any bs I come across and go about my business. If you’re curious about Linux, try it out. If you’re not, no sweat.
If you ever do try it out, I highly recommend the Linux mint forums, even if you choose a different distro. They seem friendly enough there.
I’d also recommend installing time shift for system restore type functionality and an external USB drive for backups of personal files just in case.
I’d suspect Microsoft would prefer to move personal editions to being mostly perpetual and OEM licenses, while a subscription service for business/enterprise makes more sense. Windows licensing for business is a nightmare and a per-install subscription model could be much simpler to manage while still offering good breaks under Enterprise Agreements and putting license and support under one annual sku.
ETA: Also, worth remembering that “Windows 365” is a thing and it’s very useful for DaaS. Term-based licensing makes tons of sense for DaaS/Cloud Desktop/VDI environments.
And actually, that could make a lot of sense in a future home/personal market with purpose built thin clients. Or perhaps even a set top box. Maybe, even, the Series S. A small monthly/annual fee to to make your Series S into a full-fledged desktop PC, sounds like a hell of a deal to me.
My updated edit has an even better scenario that I just conjured up. Essentially bringing Windows 365 (cloud desktop) to home thin clients, netbooks, or even STBs like the series S.
The Series S (and its descendants) would be a hell of a versatile system as a cloud desktop with official licensing and support from MS.
It would also give people a reason to actually buy a Series S which can only be a good thing. Currently their market share for the console is basically in the toilet.
As a casual gamer, I like my series S, but mostly because of Gamepass. I don’t tend to replay games after I beat them, so game ownership doesn’t mean much to me.
That has the drawback, though, of needing a lot of storage if I’m working on a few modern high-end games, and the kids have a bunch of games that they want to play, too. The built in storage on the Series S is pathetic. The supplemental storage is confusing as hell and the proprietary drive that you can launch X|S games from is ridiculously expensive. I do really hate having to plan which games I’m going to play (and when) around download and copy times, and balance that against the games that I have currently and want to play.
Now, if the Xbox could easily be paired with a keyboard/mouse/4k display to be a fully-functional desktop computer while still retaining its capability as a current-gen gaming system? Shut up and take my money. What an incredible value add, and MS gets all the sweet sweet telemetry of a family computer.
Been using Ubuntu for gaming for 99% of the time for half a year now. Basically no issues, most of my steam library works out of the box with proton. It’s very doable now, no need to wait.
Mint was always my go to; feels just enough like the best parts of Windows to be immediately comfortable. Didn’t have any problems until I switched to bleeding edge hardware; since then, I’ve been on Garuda, which had also been fine but more fiddly.
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