We get and agree that they're not actively spying on (most) people.
The one moment of sanity in this whatever this is.
This new feature requires new hardware in your PC because it moves the processing out of their cloud and onto your local system. But this is somehow actually a move to make spying easier because... your government listens in on a public network?
Future versions of windows will be just like the previous versions. A whole lot of hysteria, followed by the release of a simple tool to turn off all the new crap they added, so that it continues to look and act like windows 7.
People who think this means windows is spying on them are going to lose their minds when they realize that Teams, another Microsoft product, can record everything you camera sees and your microphone hears and has existed for years.
Checking wikipedia, if you disregard handhelds, PS4 is the second best selling games console of all time, and is still selling.
PS5 is struggling (compared to previous gens) for various reasons, but has obliterated the XBox.
It's amazing isn't it, how people will rally to such a degree to change the least bad thing about the game, but ignore everything else wrong with it.
Gamers rise up etc.
Windows is pushing towards a model where it is dependent on an external server when the OS is installing. It may never fully get there, since people will always want to join windows machines to domains, which is the one bypass that still works.
Linux long ago switched to a model where it is dependent on an external server every time you install anything (package managers). From what I've seen, if you ask for help on actually installing something yourself you'll usually get told to use a package manager instead.
Of course you can always compile from source and manually resolve dependencies on Linux, but that feels like a lot more work that bypassing some account creation. So, for me, Windows actually feels like the better option for a system actually under your control.
You know who can? Steam
The biggest DRM platform currently in existence, arguably responsible for popularizing digital distribution and consequently all but ending the ability to actually own games on PC?
I mean, Steam is certainly one of the lesser evils out there, but I can never understand how they are brought up in a positive light in conversations about games preservation.
Digital ownership doesn't really exist, I guess.
Of course it does, courtesy of GOG and similar.
I don't know why people are repeatedly surprised that they don't control a game that only exists in digital form on a platform they don't control.
Not many people care about it these days, but to actually own your games. Since le PC master race sold their consumer rights for a copy of HL2 20 years ago, physical console games are almost the only option.
GOG's library of recent AA/AAA games is growing but still very lacking.
This uh... this face... there's something... "wrong" with it.