Ask Paul: May 17 (Premium) (Updated)

UPDATE: I've updated the "Software in college" answer after speaking to my son. --Paul

Happy Friday! Here’s another round of questions and answers to get the weekend off to a good start.

But before getting to this week’s questions, I do want to apologize for last week’s mistake. As someone pointed out, and many probably suspected, I originally only answered questions posed by Alpha members. I blame travel-related tiredness for that, but I did rectify that later. And won’t make that mistake again this week for sure. Thanks! ---Paul
The direction of Windows
madthinus asks:

Post Build, how are you feeling about the direction of Windows 10? Personally it feels like it is in maintenance mode.

Microsoft will never say it that way, but then a good chunk of my career has been about stating clearly what Microsoft won’t. So, yes, I also believe Windows to be in maintenance mode, essentially. This doesn’t mean we won’t see new features as we move forward. But we all know Windows isn’t a focus for the company anymore. If there are major changes coming, you should view those changes in the context of them making Windows less expensive for Microsoft to maintain.

With regards to the direction, there is none. And that’s based more on private conversations I’ve had with people I know at Microsoft during and right after the show than it is on Microsoft’s public statements during Build. But regarding Build specifically, you don’t need to be an industry analyst to skim through the “Book of News” that Microsoft handed out to journalists and bloggers before the event. How much Windows news is in there? Not much, and most of it is purely developer-focused (which is fine).

Without getting into details, what I can say about my private conversations is that they confirmed something I’ve been saying for a while now, that the Microsoft culture awards “new” and “future,” and not improving existing products. And with the focus shifting away from Windows, the best and the brightest are moving on to other, mostly cloud-based initiatives. So when you do look at Windows, you see two things. An engineering group that is more focused on Azure than it is on Windows. And a UX group, basically, that is focused on Windows but has rarely delivered anything useful or interesting. So we’re kind of pinning our hopes on that.

Don’t take this overly-negatively: I’m honestly mostly OK with all this and given Windows’ age, it pretty much should be in maintenance mode. And Apple is basically treating macOS the same, which also makes sense.
Casper matresses
jchampeau asks:

How's that Casper mattress treating you? I'm thinking about getting one.

We actually have three of them now: My son and daughter both use them, too. I recommend it.
The State of Firefox
richardbottiglieri asks:

Paul, I'm curious what your thoughts are on the current state of Firefox, aside from their perspective on Edge's migration to Chro...