Redmond, You Have a Problem. A Quality Problem (Premium)

One of the issues with being a Windows enthusiast is watching Microsoft lose interest in this important platform. This isn't theoretical. As Microsoft's focus shifted to businesses, enterprises, cloud computing, and then AI in turn, Windows fell ever further from the center of the company's attention and ambitions. The net result of this lack of focus is diminishing quality with each subsequent Windows version. And now that Windows 11 version 24H2 is being broadly deployed to the public, you can see that this release represents a new nadir for product quality.

I recently spoke at tech event in Dallas, the first I've done so since before the pandemic, that ever-looming moment that divides the "before times" with today for all of us. In preparing for this talk, several themes emerged, and while I was deciding which to focus on, I finally reached out to Mary Jo, who had spoken at the same conference a year earlier. And I was surprised to discover that our talks, created separately and in isolation, had major crossovers. One of them is what we now call enshittification, but in her talk a year ago, Mary Jo described it as "where Microsoft's needs and its customers' needs diverge."

A few readers seem to dislike the term enshittification, but it's too perfect to ignore. The word instantly communicates its meaning. Once you understand what it is, you see it everywhere. And in our little world of personal technology, the problem is particularly acute. For consumers at large, Netflix and Spotify are perhaps the best examples, the perfect examples. But in my even littler world, this subclass of personal technology that still cares very much about the PC, there's an even better--OK, worse--example.

Windows.

That Windows is enshittified is not up for debate. But this isn't even new. It started with Windows 8, over 10 years ago, when Microsoft chased the Apple iPhone and iPad dragon, ignoring the needs of its one billion-plus installed base, delivering a one-way dead-end street in the form of touch-first mobile user interfaces that statistically no customers wanted, needed, or owned devices capable of using them effectively. There were other examples--Windows 8 was when the first in-box advertisements appeared in this platform, for example. But Windows 8 overall is the very definition of Microsoft putting its strategic needs over the needs of paying customers, and the start of a horrible trend that only escalated in the coming years.

The release of Windows 8 is important in the history of Windows because it also marks another dividing line between the "before times" and today. Windows 8 was the last major release of the product in which the entire company rallied around the release because Windows was still core to Microsoft. Not the center, but one of its most important products. But it was the wrong answer at the wrong time, and Microsoft could not have turned its back on Windows more obviously than it did at the time. Steve Ballmer...