Ads and Subscriptions are the Future … of Windows (Premium)

When Microsoft transitioned Office from a standalone software offering to a subscription service called Office 365, Microsoft fans worried about a similar fate for Windows. But the future of Windows is even worse than we’d feared: it’s not just about ongoing subscription payments, but also about more and more in-box advertising.

And yes, I will once again point out that I called it on the latter development: when Microsoft added the first advertising to Windows over 10 years ago in Windows 8, I described it as a “slippery slope,” meaning that the use of advertising would only increase---and then snowball---over time. And boy, is it hard being this right about something. Advertising in Windows has exploded in recent years. And recent developments indicate that it’s only going to get worse. Much worse.

This is troubling. But before getting to the details, I’d like to pause---and breathe---and consider how we might get out of this sinkhole. And to do so, we need to understand the problem that Microsoft is trying to solve here.

Which is that Windows is effectively free. Not literally---you do pay for it when you buy a new PC---but effectively, yes, because our PCs last longer than ever, and the current and previous Windows versions, Windows 11 and 10, are free upgrades. And Microsoft---understandably---would like to monetize this massive user base of over one billion users more than once every several years.

I respect that. But what we can debate is how they monetize their customers. After all, no one is going to pay for a Windows upgrade anymore, so that ship has sailed. But the approach Microsoft has taken---let’s call it “death by a thousand cuts”---is unappealing. There are the ads, of course, which are sometimes obvious and sometimes promoted as “suggestions.” There is crapware in the form of sponsored app shortcuts for things like Spotify, Disney+, WhatApp, and the like. There are privacy invasions like tracking that you cannot disable. And a web browser that pops up like an evil groundhog even when you’ve configured another default, and then will remind you incessantly to switch back to “the Microsoft defaults.”

Even worse are the more subtle upsells. A “Premium Edition” subscription for Solitaire & Casual Games that costs $1.99 per month or $14.99 per year. A Clipchamp Essentials subscription that costs $11.99 per month (and still can’t export in 4K). Xbox Game Pass, at $9.99 to $14.99 per month, depending on which tier you choose. OneDrive additional storage, which can be had via Microsoft 365 Basics ($1.99 per month) or, if you’re already paying for Microsoft 365 ($69.99 or $99.99 per year), an additional $1.99 to $9.99 per month depending on the tier. These little offers are suddenly all over Windows, and, not to beat a dead horse, this too is a slippery slope: there will only be more as we move forward.

But don’t take my word for it: during a conference call for Microsoft�...