> Microsoft leverages its immensely powerful position as the supplier of the ubiquitous Windows PC operating system, as well as many productivity and other must-have apps, to push users towards its first-party browser, Edge, through tactics that restrict, distort and subvert user choice.
Heh. This could have been written 25 years ago.
Though at least back then, Microsoft was winning. Since then, the market share of IE/Edge has become so irrelevant that most people have stopped caring so much about these tactics.
At this point, it mostly just comes across as adorable when Windows tries to push you to use Edge. Like "wow, they're still trying."
Microsoft is effectively a monopoly, to say it's anything else and that other browsers are available is a nonsense for reasons that everyone knows.
Appealing to reason is a waste of time as no big monopolistic corporation will willingly forfeit money. The only realistic (effective) solution is legislative. I don't see that happening anytime soon in the US but perhaps it's possible in other jurisdictions (more likely now that the US is no longer the flavor of the month with many).
You are not forced to use microsoft, in fact you have consiously paid them to be your OS. You can only beg them to consider this or move to macOS or linux in general.
Internet Explorer all over again...they never learn.
Edge was the last thing that pushed me away from Microsoft. The constant new - privacy invading - features, frickin' widgets and ad-filled home-screen-tab-thing.
Controversial thought: Browsers will become a niche and fall into obscurity like IRC nowadays, based on what I observed working in South East Asia, where people don't even know what browsers are and "the internet" are walled social networks and apps.
Why are people still using Windows?
OMG, what is wrong with people? Just use Linux. Literally any major Linux distro is superior nowadays.
You don't like it, stop using it!
You hate it, boycott it!
Don't expect change. They care so little about you and your opinions; demanding change from a multi-trillion dollar company is almost cringe-worthy at this point. Like a cockroach begging for mercy as your shoe is coming down onto it at full speed.
It's so frustrating how people nowadays complain about systems that they can easily change (or substitute, in this case) and nobody seems to complain about those systems which they cannot change nor substitute.
If you complain to abstract entities which don't care about you, about problems which you can easily solve yourself, you're the problem!
You're the reason why everything is shit and stays shit.
I think a big part of them problem is ye olde IT department, deploying the 'sloth is what they know how to do, people get funneled into using the stack and feel uncomfortable outside the walled garden. There are off the shelf solutions for end point control AD and beyond. It's not hard to come up with all the usual Machiavellian contraptions equivalent for a Linux platform but they'll have different names and hit a little different. People are creatures of habbit. I personally have a negative view on big orgs, my brief time inside a couple really painted a picture for me and I have a hard time seeing the up side of them, especially in this time of layoffs the illusion that a big org is a stable place to work is broken. Hopefully out of those pieces we can build smaller orgs that have a sprit of adventure who will pioneer new ways forward. Browser based SaaS products mostly unteather the need for a particular platform. The stage is set to use what you like, stand up for yourself and say no to using products that disrespect you.
I have a message for microsoft. I don't work for you. You don't mandate me to do a {$profanity} thing. You can "strongly suggest", "highly recommend", beg. I don't care if you lock me out of my github account. I will not be told what to do by your company. I'm certainly not installing any app from your company nor linking a personal device just to access github.
I remember Google had a slogan “don’t do evil” (dropped since then). On the top of the list of companies that do evil, I have Microsoft and Adobe. They coerce users and they destroy everything they acquire.
It's really jarring to still be pinning this on Microsoft, when Google and Apple have been doing the same for free, for years, in iOS, Android and ChromeOS.
The browser might be the definitive problem with Microsoft, but really their shitty office tools is a bigger drain on the world economy. Teams is fundamentally incapable of handling something as simple as showing the correct alerts (activity? or who the hell knows since nothing has anything to do with new messages to the user) and there's hardly a B2B company in the world that will risk not losing business by running a different tool than other people running this trash.
Microsoft doesn't listen much. The easiest to get them attention is actively migrate to Apple or Linux. Let's make Windows a niche operating system. That is the only way to get your message across. We all actively pushed from 95% Windows OS dominant in the 90s to now about 65%. Make it 5% and then, Microsoft will be a darling. That is their motivation. They want that coveted 5% niche OS position. We should help Microsoft achieve that.
This seems odd to write this when Edge's market share is like nothing. Obviously there are problems in principle with Microsoft's position via the OS (haven't there always? Like since the IE days) but this seems like just not a thing. As ever the target should be Chrome or whatever and that issues with that platform/standards feature disparity, Chromium etc.
And why is this in Politico? ...oh I see it's the Europe edition. Is this because of EU tech sovereignty trends?
21 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 50.9 ms ] threadHeh. This could have been written 25 years ago.
Though at least back then, Microsoft was winning. Since then, the market share of IE/Edge has become so irrelevant that most people have stopped caring so much about these tactics.
At this point, it mostly just comes across as adorable when Windows tries to push you to use Edge. Like "wow, they're still trying."
Adorable like a rabid chihuahua who won't stop pissing and shitting and barking and trying to spread its rabies to anyone in biting distance
Appealing to reason is a waste of time as no big monopolistic corporation will willingly forfeit money. The only realistic (effective) solution is legislative. I don't see that happening anytime soon in the US but perhaps it's possible in other jurisdictions (more likely now that the US is no longer the flavor of the month with many).
Heck, using safari to do a google search has google using half the screen begging me to use their browser or their use the google full ai experience.
From this article [0]
> Smartphones have become the dominant gateway to the internet.
> Mobile Share of Web Requests (Dec 2024) - 63%
IMHO, this is far more pernicious and insidious.
[0]: https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/device-usage-trends/
Who is the "Browser Choice Alliance" I thought to myself. One web search later:
> Our members: Midori, Opera, Vivaldi, Wavebox, Browserworks, and, ... wait for it ...
> Chrome.
You don't like it, stop using it! You hate it, boycott it! Don't expect change. They care so little about you and your opinions; demanding change from a multi-trillion dollar company is almost cringe-worthy at this point. Like a cockroach begging for mercy as your shoe is coming down onto it at full speed.
It's so frustrating how people nowadays complain about systems that they can easily change (or substitute, in this case) and nobody seems to complain about those systems which they cannot change nor substitute.
If you complain to abstract entities which don't care about you, about problems which you can easily solve yourself, you're the problem!
You're the reason why everything is shit and stays shit.
And why is this in Politico? ...oh I see it's the Europe edition. Is this because of EU tech sovereignty trends?