Microsoft is a business. Their interests and your interests have never and will never be aligned. They may occasionally release products which can solve your needs - but their interest in this case is to extract the maximum amount of money from you in exchange for solving your need. Solving the need has never been an explicit interest in itself.
Moving to an advertising based pricing model doesn't change any alignment. They still need to fulfill your need or you won't use their software which means they won't get paid by advertisers. They still don't have your interests at heart, but will not do anything to directly lose you as a 'customer' if they believe there are methods of extracting revenue from you.
Microsoft's main customer base has never been the end user anyway, you were merely collateral to getting them inroads into the lucrative enterprise markets which requires that employees coming into enterprise positions are already familiar with Microsoft's technology.
> Microsoft is a business. Their interests and your interests have never and will never be aligned. They may occasionally release products which can solve your needs - but their interest in this case is to extract the maximum amount of money from you in exchange for solving your need. Solving the need has never been an explicit interest in itself.
You can say the same thing for every business then. I don't think you see it in the proper light. A business is a for profit organization. It does not mean it does not strive to provide valuable services. Actually, you'll see that when companies actually evolve in a relatively free market (i.e. which is not the case of Windows since it's installed by default on most PCs), companies actually compete to provide better service to their customers in order to maximize their profits. There are many cases where consumers interests and companies interests CAN be aligned.
> You can say the same thing for every business then.
That's exactly what I am saying. It might appear that a businesses interests align with yours - and the business will certainly scream it to the heavens that they're aligned. But they are never really aligned. You will feel much less betrayed on a daily basis when you understand that. Oil companies destroying the reefs, mining companies contaminating water supplies, manufacturing companies off-shoring labor to ghettos, small mom&pop shops installing wifi trackers, Software companies adding adverts, etc.
Their interests and our interest may not have been aligned, but at least the user was the customer. In an ad supported model, the advertiser is the customer, the users are the product, and the software is the bait. We've already seen where that gets us.
Moving to an advertising based pricing model doesn't change any alignment. They still need to fulfill your need or you won't use their software which means they won't get paid by advertisers. They still don't have your interests at heart, but will not do anything to directly lose you as a 'customer' if they believe there are methods of extracting revenue from you.
Microsoft's main customer base has never been the end user anyway, you were merely collateral to getting them inroads into the lucrative enterprise markets which requires that employees coming into enterprise positions are already familiar with Microsoft's technology.