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Comment by marcodiego | Hacker News Reader

> Microsoft is sacrificing its reputation and the quality of a high-profile product for probably a few million?

Which reputation?

The reputation they have of being the makers of the most popular desktop operating system and most popular office productivity suite. You may not like them but most of the businesses in the world use their software. I can’t believe they think it’s worth it to harm their professional image in exchange for whatever pennies they will be making by sticking in a layaway feature into their browser.

Are you being forced to use it?

No, but the question was about Microsoft’s reputation. Whether I use the pay over time feature or not, Microsoft are hurting their reputation as a software maker and therefore their revenue from their paid products by signaling their willingness to insert irrelevant features into their software.

OK, so you're not being forced to use it which means you have the choice to ignore it so it's not required.

.....yes.

> Microsoft are hurting their reputation as a software maker and therefore their revenue from their paid products by signaling their willingness to insert irrelevant features into their software.

If you're not aware, the latest Office also has LinkedIn integration. Pretty much what I'd class as an irrelevant feature. This is nothing new.

I’m not forced anymore because I work at a nice company, but in several jobs I had before: yes. I was forced to use a specific OS, and a specific browser. It is still extremely common in enterprise.

And before you say I “should have changed jobs“: not everyone is a developer who can easily job-hop like me, though.

So you're being forced to 'By now pay later' by Microsoft?

They'll still be the most popular of both of those things. I think what the parent commenter is getting at is that Microsoft already had a reputation for being greedy and forcing unwanted features onto users. It would be more accurate to say this jeopardizes their ongoing attempt to rehabilitate their image.

They don't care about reputation. Nearly every Windows user hates Windows, everyone knows that Windows it's a bad operating system, still it is the operating system that everyone uses for the fact that comes installed on every computer that you purchase and most people doesn't even know than an alternative exists.

I doubt most people hate windows 10.

I'm with you on this. Win 10 is a solid OS.

Most people have not used another OS to make a comparison. Windows being kinda crap is why most people kinda hate computers.

Most people don't even think about their operating system. HN is so far from the general public in terms of preference and mindshare and it is important to remember that.

I don't hate Windows 10. Neither does my extended family, nor peer group - who all use Windows. We always disable the telemetry stuff though and it works just fantastic.

> Nearly every Windows user hates Windows, everyone knows that Windows it's a bad operating system

Maybe you have some data we don’t but that’s probably wrong.

Also I think Windows 10 is very good, so that « everyone » is wrong.

For sure. I'm old enough that Microsoft's reputation is that of an exploitative, dirty-dealing, would-be monopolist. They appeared to get better after the DOJ and a number of competitors knocked them from their dominant position. But I've always suspected that was a change forced by circumstance, not some sort of deep inner improvement.

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