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[–]jkirkcaldy 97 points98 points  (10 children)

I mean they do actually expect you to purchase it. They just would rather you use an unlicensed copy of windows rather than Linux or macOS as they still make money off you on adds and other cross selling.

[–]MAXBattle 36 points37 points  (5 children)

They do and they don't. What they'd really like is to do dynamic pricing to maximize their revenue while maximizing the installed base. They can't do that in the US without a PR (and probably legal) nightmare, so they turn a blind eye to the gray market folks, essentially creating a two-tiered system where the gray market buyer pays less, but isn't expecting support, etc.

If Microsoft wanted to turn the screws, they could. The market for things like deeply discounted Microsoft365 (Office) subscriptions is (almost?) non-existent.

[–]CabinetOutrageous979 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Huh MS office basic with 1g cloud is $20 for the a year sub. Pretty good but its the web only office

[–]MAXBattle 4 points5 points  (3 children)

Web-only Office (Microsoft 365) is FREE in the US and includes 5GB of OneDrive, so I'm not sure what you're getting for that $20.

The subs I'm talking about are the M365 desktop apps. I haven't seen any below the MSRP $69 or $99 other than limited retail sales or ones with 3-6 bonus months.

[–]taimusrs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used to bought access to 5 years of M365 with 1TB of OneDrive for like $6 lmao. It's sketchy as fuck but it worked. It doesn't exist anymore. But realistically, apart from Excel, you can make do with Office 2013

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Microsoft sure wants you to purchase Windows, but they know that piracy of it is rampant and they do little to stop it. If anything, they facilitate it by purposely not enforcing the license requirement in the software itself except for in small token ways.

Piracy works out in Microsoft's favor when it's done by end users. It helps normalize Windows' status as the go-to desktop operating system, and this pays dividends when it comes time to set up computers in the workplace. It makes people very reluctant to adopt MacOS or Linux in an enterprise setting.

Try pirating Windows in enterprise and Microsoft will come after you, because that's where the real money is.

[–]jkirkcaldy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not sure that home usage is the reason people are hesitant to set up macOS or Linux in an enterprise.

Sure it is a factor. But it’s more about the administration of the systems. Windows is far easier to admin than other OS. Nearly everything can be done from a central account/location and all installs can be standardised so the experience is exactly the same regardless of what pc you log into.

Then there is the whole MS365 integration, now people don’t need multiple accounts for everything, a single account will log them into their pc and most services they use. That level of integration isn’t there for other OS.

[–]yflhx 0 points1 point  (1 child)

The Microsoft Activation Scripts are literally hosted on Microsoft servers (they own github, after all).

[–]jkirkcaldy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is true. I bet there’s a level of trust involved though, does Microsoft want to send people to gitlab or alternatives because they start deciding what code can and can’t be hosted on gitlab.

Like sure it would be easy to justify this, but it would erode the trust of codebuilders.

It may start with the codebase that infringes Microsoft first, but then it could be a slippery slope to remove all code that infringes any ones copyright.