And for those we tell them the truth: if all this bothers you, and it should, pay for the version of Windows that you can control, instead of paying nothing and having your computer (and data) be controlled by someone else.

Or, of course, pay nothing and use Linux. But as much as we want to pretend that's a solution that works for everyone, that's not a solution that works for everyone. Especially as, just like Windows, you're not done once it's installed, you still need to do that one time configure-all-the-things pass on Linux, too.