might as well be that they change their licensing model for businesses to some sort of Subscription. The resale of volume keys has been a pain in their butt for a long time.

They haven’t even gotten Office to subscription-only yet

Getting closer every day. Having a M365 subscription for Office is now the normal way that SMB and larger businesses work with it and at home Microsoft’s “Family Plan” that includes Office has been doing nothing but growing since they introduced it. Last I checked they were over 50 Million subscribers.

Windows as an OS will eventually be going subscription. You’ll pay the licensing to unlock features like the Windows “S” mode model or you’ll pay the licensing in order to access a Windows 365 Cloud PC that’s part of your family plan.

Most home users will have hardware similar to a Chromebook. “PC” gaming will be done via streaming or you’ll just buy an Xbox.

Yup, Chromebooks are already cheap and pretty intuitive, I think this will bump their sales a lot.

Won’t matter to Microsoft at all. You’ll use your Chromebook to connect your Windows 365 Cloud PC . They’ll add it to the Microsoft Family Plan, same one that has MS Office in it, for free when its introduced and then slowly raise the price as people get embedded into it.

And tablets, which most people seem to be using these days.

Yeah the only people whose minds this will change are agnostic techies

To start, I don’t think it’ll be a “subscribe or else” type deal. My assumption would be something like a forced S mode unless you subscribe.

Second, people won’t jump right away. To start, word will get around and they’ll simply not update. Then, when it comes time to buy a new computer, the average user will be possibly swayed to look at entry level MB Airs (They often go on sale for like $750) or Chromebooks.

The people who will get really pissed will be power users and gamers who will be forced to shell out money to get back features they had in previous versions of the OS.

Fucking thank you. What the fuck is with human beings and this “all or nothing” attitude? Is it new or has it always been this way? I see it across every damn subsection of humanity but especially in diet and exercise but computing too with this shit here and “everyone needs to abandon reddit and twitter for mastodon and lemmy!” like – no, we can go slowly. MS can hit a jugular and bleed out but you can bleed out from internal bleeding or a thousand paper cuts too.

Even the rumor of this makes Valve’s focus on Linux seem that much smarter.

I’ve never used Linux but if Microsoft goes subscription I’m out and I’ll be learning Linux.

I’ve been meaning to install Linux on my primary gaming PC but haven’t yet due to laziness. This would 100% get me to pull the trigger if/when I ever had to upgrade/reinstall.

And a lot of linux programs take inspiration from Microsoft’s design because they’re the norm. When you think of a word processor you think of Word.

Does that include the Miley Cirus operating system?

Caveat: if the software you need is supported. Unfortunately that’s the major reason I haven’t switched

Now that’s just some bullshit and you know it

Remove the bloatware with a free program like ShutUp10++, and Windows is a fine OS. Linux may very well be better still, but better enough to go through the effort of switching over, reinstalling everything, relearning everything, finding alternatives to programs, etc.? I doubt it. Not for me at least.

Like garbage. That’s why I haven’t invested in the time. I write large documents and do lot of research for publishing. As such learning a new tool is a pain in the ass

LibreOffice works at least as well as Word on its own terms, the problem is how Microsoft deliberately breaks interoperability so you can’t reliably share the documents you create on Libre with people who are going to open them with Word.

Since most companies are moving their tools to web-based versions, the switch will be even easier.

Office already has extensive een versions. They’re not entirely there yet, but good enough if you don’t need advanced functionality.

I wish. Try editing a document with tables.

LibreOffice is fine if all you are doing is writing a Dear Princess Celestia letter, but when you actually start doing advanced things, the jankiness of LibreOffice starts to become wasted effort. If I have to spend more time fighting the program than actually doing work, it’s worth the money for Office. Especially at $70/year for M365, which is roughly 1-3 hours of work depending on what job and such.

Unfortunately the difference is huge. It’s not just the cost of learning a new tool, it’s that 10% of really important features are not there. For me for example it was the ability to apply a theme to an existing presentation in Impress. Well in the corporate world, it’s mandatory.

Using Linux daily since 99, as my only personal OS since 2013, and still struggling with the office alternatives.

I have the capacity and the knowledge but not the motivation.