The Problem with Microsoft

Avram Piltch’s op-ed piece on Tom’s Hardware pertaining to the default, opt-in inundation of tabloid media in widgets and the Search bar raises a valid point. Initial concerns about the amount of usage and telemetry data that Microsoft was requesting with Windows 10 were legitimate. The continued insistence of making opt-in the default behavior for more recent additions to Windows 11 adds further concern. Pumping syndicated media with clickbait-style headlines in an effort to drive ad revenue as a native element within a licensed operating system (paid for by the customer) isn’t the only misstep that Microsoft has made. Partnerships with non-Google search engines are steering results toward MSN properties. Unfortunately, access to the full article on mobile devices is obfuscated by a link and push to redirect viewers to download Microsoft Start instead of providing the balance of the article. There are already superior alternatives if one is looking for a news aggregation and curation platform. This wasn’t a market that needed to be addressed with a later competitor. Maybe they simply can’t hear what their customers actually want due to partaking in entertainment from Sting prior to initiating layoffs.