Windows as a software package would have never been affordable to individuals or local-level orgs in countries like India and Bangladesh (especially in the 2000’s) that are now powerhouses of IT. Same for many SE Asian, Eastern European, African and LatinoAmerican countries as well.
Had the OS been too difficult to pirate, educators and local institutions in these countries would have certainly shifted to Linux and the like. The fact that Windows could be pirated easily is the main factor that led to its ubiquity and allowed it to become a household name. Its rapid popularity in the '00s and early '10s cemented its status as the PC operating system.
Not true at all. You’re thinking the past 20 years instead of the past 35 years. Windows was already “the” OS around the world well before you could just pirate a copy online. They cut deals and made sure if you bought a pc it has windows on it. They made sure the countries you speak of had dirt cheap cd keys without piracy. Microsoft in the late 80s/90s had a lot of moving parts that went into making sure the only OS you’d be using was windows. Even after they got in trouble in 1992-94 and in 2000-2001.
Piracy or not. Windows was almost anyone’s only choice.
The past 20 years is what’s relevant for all countries apart from Japan, China and those in North America and Eastern Europe when it comes to PCs.
I don’t think any cost above ₹200 (~ $2.5) would have been justifiable for an OS in third world countries in the '00s, and the “dirt cheap CD keys” were certainly more expensive than that anywhere.
I’m afraid you’re simply making things up. Microsoft donated computers with windows to all the third world countries. Literally the only way any schools had PC’s in third world countries was because Microsoft delivered them there, and any business’ that got computers used windows because they had office use applications and it was the only OS that anyone had previous practice with using, because of the donated computers.
It’s hilarious that you think Microsoft’s charity is what brought computers to the third world. Do you even hear yourself?
Of course it has. Maybe try pulling your head out of your ass.
Unbelievable. You genuinely think the rest of the world wouldn’t have had computers had your god Microsoft not been so benevolent as to donate a few machines to a few schools for PR
Stay happy in your pathetic white saviours’ world, I guess. There’s no point discussing anything with you
Oh shit. You’re dumb AND racist. Lol. You poor fuck.
Even though Linux is still somewhat popular in tech circles, consider that windows would have a significant market share for providing high value entertainment and a wide variety of tools to office workers. Microsoft Office is the dominant documentation and accounting suite for office workers around the world.
Now, combine that with the way that Microsoft has bundled their OS into many laptops and retail computers worldwide and you see why they’re big.
Essentially anybody looking to do any paperwork related work will have to interact with Microsoft’s system of software in one way or another. If Bill Gates was a deity, he’d probably fit right in with the god of tax collectors, taxing people for paperwork and bureaucracy.
Windows as a software package would have never been affordable to individuals or local-level orgs in countries like India and Bangladesh (especially in the 2000’s) that are now powerhouses of IT. … Had the OS been too difficult to pirate, educators and local institutions in these countries would have certainly shifted to Linux and the like.
While i somewhat agree with your overall statement, this part is just wrong. Linux in the late 1990s and 2000s was very different from today, where you just plug in a CD/USB and select your region. Linux back then was very nerdy, you had to choose your hardware first to make sure there was a linux driver and the installation process was very difficult, especially before plug&play where you had to know which IRQs and slots you had to use for network, sound and videocard to avoid conflicts. I remember trying to install Linux from a CD, only to work my war from one error message to the next because it did not like my videocard, soundcard or both.
Also, what would you do with a linux pc at home or at work if it could not run word, excel, duke nukem 3D, TTD, programs you knew from work/school or software you could pirate from your friends?
I remember trying to get wireless working and having ndiswrapper wrap the windows drivers and having it fail epically
Linux’s development would have accelerated a lot had there been more demand. There wasn’t enough demand because pirated Windows was getting the work done.
In the 90s there where a lot more OS available to compete agains windows, who already had existing software (sometimes better and more capable) to compete with windows: MacOS (Popular in print, layout), BeOS, OS2/warp (tried to replace windows), Amiga OS (best for video editing work at the time), Atari, Novell Netware.
It’s not exactly like people where desperate for another OS at this point in the late 90s/early 2000s.
I don’t think that necessarily holds true for OSS. The average user with no development experience wanting to use an open source project doesn’t mean it will always develop faster.
PTSD…
I once destroyed a CRT monitor by misconfiguring X11.
Nowadays Linux just works to the point where my 72 year old mother is able to deal with Pop_OS without issue.
But man, those early days of unstable drivers, slow dial-up internet, and navigating through Usenet and IRC for decent support was a nightmarish labor of love.
The silky smoothness that we have now was built on caffeine and the backs of millions of greybeards.
(For the record: “Greybeard” is a nerdy term of endearment that I’ve seen adopted by people identifying all across the rainbow. Kinda like dwarfs on Discworld).
Greybeard is also the name for an experienced DRG player
Windows is largely successful because there was nothing else good enough for Intel to use back in the late 80s. They struck a partnership and it took off, indoctrinating people into the Windows way of life for decades to come. Most people hate new tech, it means that they have to learn something new that they’d rather not (akin to telling someone to write with the opposite hand than the one they’ve been using their entire lives), even if that thing is simple. Piracy just strengthened that already strong foothold that they had.
Absolutely, and Microsoft knows this. You could even upgrade a pirated version of Windows to a legit copy when they did the upgrade drive for 7 I believe it was. Did it myself. And they completely turn a blind eye to OEM key reselling, which is why you can get legit windows keys for less than $10 these days.
They’ve also never done anything substantial against pirates, all they do is pester about buying a key and warn about the risks. The “worst” they do is stop you from using windows update which some see as a feature. When they could just completely lock you out and/or report you to the police.
The money is in server for Microsoft, but they’re losing that battle slowly but surely since they can’t make windows actually work properly in a container setting. I have customers that love Microsoft but despite their best efforts at making containerized windows workloads work it just sucks major ass. And virtually everybody is coming around to realize just how insane of a paradigm shift containers are.
And losing that battle is why 12 will likely move to subscription. And I’m willing to bet money that, in 10 years time, will be considered the starting point for Microsofts dramatic loss of market share in the home PC market. From 90% or so now down to like 50 ish %. But maybe some smart guys at Microsoft will nip that in the bud.
Although I mostly agree with you, this is not true:
The “worst” they do is stop you from using windows update
The worst they do is practically force you to buy a windows license with most laptops and even some pre-built tower PCs.
Yes there are some vendors/manufacturers who don’t force you or ask, if you want an Ubuntu/Mint/Pop_!OS or smth. but most just don’t give a shit.
in my country vendors are forced to offer a free OS/no OS option.
most new laptops here come with linux preinstalled lol
I would argue there’s nothing to snip in the bud, since the home PC is a dying breed anyway. It is increasingly only used by hobbyists and professionals. Some people will use a laptop issued from work but the choice of OS in those cases is seldom theirs. Other than that it’s all phones, tablets, consoles, TVs etc.
The PC market itself is shrinking.
I don’t disagree with PCs being on a strong downward trend. But the point of Windows on PCs has always been familiarity such that it’s what’s prefered and feel easiest for servers. Without their domination of home PC no company would be running Windows Server these days. And the last people to stop using PCs at home are bound to be tech people that have some say in what type of servers to run.
That said Microsoft has been divesting from their reliance on Windows Server so it’s not like they’ll die from this. But it’s going to mean we’ll hopefully be rid of Windows Server soon!
PCs are expensive and unpractical.
I wanted a PC, bought a tablet. Ideally, I’d want a SFFPC plus screens that I could easily move. I’d settle for a SFFPC with a dedicated graphics card if I couldn’t move it. I’d also settle for a notebook that would allow me to easily swap HDDs/SSDs. However, none of those things are possible and/or have a good cost-benefit, so I got a tablet.
Notebooks are too clunky compared to tablets because they are attached to a keyboard and to a screen. If those parts were removable, they would be more successful. Tablets would also be more popular if you could use them as PC screens (some from Lenovo already come with this featur).
Manufacturers are moving in the opposite direction, soldering memory, and making as hard as possible to change parts.
13 or so years ago, whenever the first iPads were coming out, that was my first thought. Why don’t they take their laptops, and have the screen removable that it instantly turns into an iPad? Or a windows computer that does the same thing. Microsoft did it with the surface, and it worked pretty well. Still wasn’t quite what I had imagined, but pretty much was. Apple could have made a killing doing something like that, I’m still convinced (if it was PC based when docked though, not their cell phone/iPad OS).
Wait fr?
Yes. It’s even extreme in some places. For example, more than half of Australian households have reported in a 2022 study that they never accessed the internet from a desktop PC that year ( source; also, paywall warning). In Hungary, desktop ownership dropped from 47.5% in 2014 to 39.2% 2019. It’s safe to assume the downwards trend has continued into 2023.
Japan dropped from 81.7% in 2013 to 69% in 2022 (this is for PC ownership in general and doesn’t differentiate between desktops and laptops) and Germany dropped from 64.5% (desktops) in 2006 to 42.9% in 2022.
Even African countries, which had depressingly low computer ownership to begin with, have seen a stagnation at around 7.5% (yes, it’s that low) between 2015 and 2019.
These are just a few examples, but you’ll see a similar trend everywhere you look. Looking at these statistics reminds me of this Apple ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfR_Jj4grZE
Your data shows desktops, but it doesn’t show laptops. It’s not news that laptops are more common than desktops.
I thought we were talking exclusively about desktops. My bad.
But not all of the data shows desktops only. The ones I linked for Japan and Africa are for computer ownership in general.
Wow that’s just crazy. I thought it was going the other way
I’m not sure I buy that 12 is going to be subscription based. I think that would be the straw that broke the camels back. I think we are peak subscription at this point, it’s getting hard to justify this ever growing faucet of money outflows to these friggin subscriptions. Cell phones are quickly becoming PC replacements too. Maybe not in our lives, but for a lot of the common folks that just want to browse and email, absolutely they are. This is why you are seeing Apple’s OS and Android increasingly becoming more PC-like. The next battlefield, I think, is going to be Android vs Windows. Android is currently free, which isn’t going to bode well for a 12 subscription model.
They won’t go subscription for most users. They know with 100% certainty that their home market share will crumble if they did, and that would lead into business share.
Linux has become too easy to use and thanks to an awesome hard push from Valve with the Steam Deck, gamers don’t even need windows anymore, with the exception of some online games with brutal anti cheat software baked in.
I saw a yt video few years ago about how microsoft allowed windows piracy on South Asian countries to increase windows adoption rate.
In all Latinoamerica, yes, in the 2000s the Windows xp license was a significant part of the price of a computer, so most people pirate it, probably 7 out of 10 copys of Xp were installed an activated by piracy
Out of the 4 laptops i used recently, 3 of them were using a pirated version of windows. 1 of them(my laptop) didnt use a pirated version of windows because it was already paid when i bought the laptop. I thought all laptops(that are not using macos or linux) came with windows preistalled
…and they knew it from the beginning.
Even the MPAA and RIAA know piracy fuels culture and makes golden hits into platinum hits and boost sequel album sales and auxiliary items (toys and lunchboxes).
They can’t help themselves because to the execs and shareholders, it feels like lost sales and theft. And the DRM market capitalizes on those feelings.
For private individuals and small institutions, yes, they would definitely use linux if windows was 100% impossible to pirate.
For corporations and bigger institutions, no, they would 100% continue to use windows just because of the control they can have on their devices, group policies, single sign on, and so on. It’s possible to do that on Linux, but not as easily. They’re already paying 15 dollars / month to microsoft just for AAD/entra/[whatever they call it this week] or even more to have office integrated with that and $200 for a permanent license for a single PC is a drop in the bucket
Linux is designed to be able to do group policies like that very well
Remember, Linux originates back from the terminal days, and the vast majority of servers run Linux. If any OS is made to function well in large organizations, it’s Linux. Windows is popular on desktop for reasons other than better group policies.
When I was working IT in a place that produced transcripts - so we had loads of typists all using Windows and MS Word loaded down with a thousand macros - the IT department made all of the servers linux based, and all our production was stored on samba shares. The only reason they hadn’t transitioned the entire workforce to linux was resistance from management.
I imagine there would’ve been resistance from users too, but all of the inertia was due to familiarity and had absolutely nothing to do with technical barriers. The entire IT team was frothing at the mouth to be free of Microsoft’s arbitrary BS. Windows caused us no end of headaches.
In fact, because every typist needed a browser open at all times to research legal terms and other details, I had a number of people complain their computer was running slowly. For every one of them, I installed firefox and made it the default browser and told them they’d need to login to all of their online accounts again. Every single one told me I’d “fixed the computer” and it “works so much better now”.
group policies, single sign on, and so on. It’s possible to do that on Linux, but not as easily.
It is just as easy, if you have a sysadmin who knows what they’re doing. Which is the case for Microsoft too, you need someone knowledgeable for the implementation and management anyway.
This is where Windows being “free” and everywhere comes in, everybody buys Microsoft without a second thought.
Same with Photoshop, Maya etc. These corps know that letting consumers pirate their software will create more legit end users. Since people will get used to their software and won’t easily switch when they enter the professional workforce where these corps don’t condone piracy and actually audit businesses. At least in Western nations they even audit small businesses. Like my friend used to work at a small engineering firm in the Netherlands and Autodesk came by to audit the CAD licenses.
How do those companies audit businesses that they don’t know are using their software? Do they have a special force built just to track creative releases from indie makers?
at work we once bought licenses from Autodesk and one day, when we realized that we didn’t need it anymore and we could use a better alternative, they sent us a letter where they assumed that we stopped paying because we started to pirate. They basically threatened us to allow to run some malware on our computers to check compliance, or someone could tip us off to local authorities. They even tried to bribe the person who read the letter by ending the letter with something like “in case of piracy, the whistleblower could be rewarded financially”. It was a regular mail, so we just ignored it.
That’s very common with Microsoft products too. Their vendors get to use @microsoft.com emails (distinguishable by an extra “v”) so they frequently pose as “auditors” to pressure businesses into buying licenses.
It’s a grey area because a business with all licenses in order would not care either way, but software being what it is it’s hard to stay compliant all the time even if you try, and that’s when the vultures descend.
For example say you appoint a new CTO and they realize your company of 200 PCs uses pirate Office copies, so they buy 200 genuine licenses, but they’re cut short of actually installing the matching Office version because Office is a piece of malware-acting crap and is actually very hard to completely purge from a domain install. So they end up holding correct licenses but using technically pirated versions. This is where a genuine audit would not care (you paid for the newer version and are using the older, crappier version; due to their fault, I might add? you do you Microsoft got paid) — but an unscrupulous vendor would try to scare you into paying more to “fix it”.
The vast majority of the value of a consumer facing computer system is in the people who help other people.
They know that.
windows is largely successful because of oems.
microsoft owns github microsoft owns windows mas is used to pirate windows mas is hosted on github hmmmm…
That’s how they got around selling at a loss to crush the competition I guess.
I mean sure in those countries maybe. But the vast majority of people using windows in North America would still be using Windows (And possibly Europe, but I cant speak for Europe) even if it wasnt easily piratable.
