Windows 10 Monthly Fee Misconceptions
CONFIRMATION BIAS!
A number of people are calling themselves correct for claiming that Microsoft's new enterprise licensing model proves their earlier fear mongering that Windows 10 was delivered "as a service" to enable roping people into monthly fees was correct/justified/whatever.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Let me re-iterate. Windows 10 isn't really "as a service". Even with these changes. This was just a bad PR move on Microsoft's part. They wanted the OS to be associated with the positive side of what "as a service" usually meant (and for the most part this is true). Instead they've become associated with the patently false negatives.
An OS as a service would mean that your OS would actually be a remote service and not some disconnected thing that lives on your computer. There would be some lightweight client of course, but most of the functionality would be elsewhere. Windows 10 (by VERY stark contrast) is ENTIRELY local. You can take your PC offline and use it indefinitely as such.
Things which are delivered as a service though are usually always up to date. For instance, you can't talk to a Facebook API that was removed 2 years ago. The service isn't yours and isn't maintained by you. And Facebook is incentivized to keep their services up to date. While you may lose access to deprecated APIs you also get the latest functionality, etc.... In a similar (yet wholly different) fashion, Microsoft is now committed to keeping Windows 10 PCs as up to date as they can. But, since your PC may be disconnected, it is possible to bypass this (though, why would you?).
Why is all of this technical nonsense important? Well, if your OS was truly a service, then Microsoft would incur overhead costs for every user, every time they used their OS. It would be unlikely in this case that Microsoft would be able to continue indefinitely without implementing some sort of subscription fee. And, it is also precisely why many companies that offer online services do so via some form of subscription rather than a flat cost.
With this new licensing model, none of that has changed either. Also, the old licensing model hasn't necessarily gone away either. All that has happened is that Microsoft has enabled non-perpetual licenses for Windows. Something they technically could have done in ANY prior Windows version which supported internet connectivity out of the box, had they been inclined to do so.
And THAT is important because it underlines the fact that this has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the claim that Windows 10 is "as a service" is related to this.
It also does nothing to validate most of the original complaints about Microsoft stealthily transitioning users to this sort of licensing. That has not happened, and conceivably won't ever. It also has nothing (and never had anything) at all to do with the "as a service" part of Microsoft's pitch.
People just want to read the news in the way that best supports their own fears/beliefs/insanity/whatever. And I suppose there is nothing new about that either.
A number of people are calling themselves correct for claiming that Microsoft's new enterprise licensing model proves their earlier fear mongering that Windows 10 was delivered "as a service" to enable roping people into monthly fees was correct/justified/whatever.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Let me re-iterate. Windows 10 isn't really "as a service". Even with these changes. This was just a bad PR move on Microsoft's part. They wanted the OS to be associated with the positive side of what "as a service" usually meant (and for the most part this is true). Instead they've become associated with the patently false negatives.
An OS as a service would mean that your OS would actually be a remote service and not some disconnected thing that lives on your computer. There would be some lightweight client of course, but most of the functionality would be elsewhere. Windows 10 (by VERY stark contrast) is ENTIRELY local. You can take your PC offline and use it indefinitely as such.
Things which are delivered as a service though are usually always up to date. For instance, you can't talk to a Facebook API that was removed 2 years ago. The service isn't yours and isn't maintained by you. And Facebook is incentivized to keep their services up to date. While you may lose access to deprecated APIs you also get the latest functionality, etc.... In a similar (yet wholly different) fashion, Microsoft is now committed to keeping Windows 10 PCs as up to date as they can. But, since your PC may be disconnected, it is possible to bypass this (though, why would you?).
Why is all of this technical nonsense important? Well, if your OS was truly a service, then Microsoft would incur overhead costs for every user, every time they used their OS. It would be unlikely in this case that Microsoft would be able to continue indefinitely without implementing some sort of subscription fee. And, it is also precisely why many companies that offer online services do so via some form of subscription rather than a flat cost.
With this new licensing model, none of that has changed either. Also, the old licensing model hasn't necessarily gone away either. All that has happened is that Microsoft has enabled non-perpetual licenses for Windows. Something they technically could have done in ANY prior Windows version which supported internet connectivity out of the box, had they been inclined to do so.
And THAT is important because it underlines the fact that this has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the claim that Windows 10 is "as a service" is related to this.
It also does nothing to validate most of the original complaints about Microsoft stealthily transitioning users to this sort of licensing. That has not happened, and conceivably won't ever. It also has nothing (and never had anything) at all to do with the "as a service" part of Microsoft's pitch.
People just want to read the news in the way that best supports their own fears/beliefs/insanity/whatever. And I suppose there is nothing new about that either.
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