I'm developing a theory that Microsoft's comical inability to run a digital store or the like is actually the work of insurgents within their ranks, who know how dangerous that would be, and encourage the absolute worst executive to counter it.
"You're right sir, we SHOULD put ads into the OS- hey what if we added a suggested apps thing that randomly told users to install Minecraft? Because you know bitches love Minecraft, boss, amirite?"
@glassbottommeg When I worked at Microsoft, there was an executive talking about his vision for the Store. He had been trying for years to convince people to let him try a version of Windows that was free, but users would only be able to install apps from the Store. It was such a strange vibe in the room when he announced that. The leadership people were applauding, and all the developers (myself included) were looking around in shock
@The1Krutz I'm shocked they haven't tried for a lockout, yep. Exactly that. We'd all just bail for zone but, they don't seem to care about power users anymore.
I don't think they even care about gamers? They're basically making a layer to be installed on the dumb terminals that grandma uses to check email now. Everything else is unforseen externalities.
@glassbottommeg all corporations at their scale run purely on executive vibes. entire nation-states' worth of employees shuffled this way and that, or cut loose, based entirely on how some guy they'll never meet is feeling about things on a random day.
the "Bush Jr DOJ didn't punish us for monopolist tactics, and it's been a while so let's strongarm and dark pattern every user we can into using our new bullshit" vibe has gotten particularly loud lately. equal parts embarrassing and evil.
@glassbottommeg It's simpler, like all big companies they base their decision on data rather than intuition. Collecting data on how much money you would make by putting ads is easier to collect than the negative sentiment generated by those ads.
(They have a warning in their Windows Mail that they'll give you Outlook soon, testing and the major difference I spotted was the ads. When they force the upgrade I'll stop using their app and move on to Thunderbird or whatever)
@glassbottommeg While it'd be nice, it's just a result of the ole "mini clouds all pointing guns at each other" issue Microsoft has had forever.
There's been a long-standing war between various different teams about who should own the entire thing, with no-one wanting to give it up, and if one gets the upper hand, trying to unify the experience to the point where it's too badly organized for each specific platform.
@glassbottommeg Microsoft is so weird about their nags and stuff. I cannot imagine what they possibly think could become of Edge that justifies all the brand harm of these nags
Even chat gpt has been a loss for their search it seems like
@glassbottommeg I wish! Unfortunately, the truth is probably way more boring. They've acquired so many companies, and never bothered to integrate their backends that anything they call a marketplace should be viewed more like a Bazaar or swap meet at best, a Craigslist Missed Connections at worst.
@glassbottommeg Right now, one of my favorite things is that they seem to have just forgotten to add whatever login service games use to Windows-ARM. Like I can't play Minecraft (or any Gamepass games) on my mac booting into windows because just that one login service errors out.
@glassbottommeg I specify games because the Windows Store itself works, so it's the Xbox service. I can install a game I've bought but not sign in (ex: Minecraft Dungeons) or play a game on XCloud, but I can't sign into a game and play natively. Steam games on Windows actually seem to run better on my M2 MacBook Air than my older Razer Blade Stealth though (seem to being key, Windows 11 has messed with all the performance modes so I'm probably throttled whenever I test).
@glassbottommeg I haven't had the service itself break, but I've had the entire appx/UWP store... subsystem? completely explode. As in I can't install or run any "modern" apps without basically uninstalling everything with arcane powershell admin commands similar to what you've mentioned 😆
Add comment