"But muh games!"

Kids get accustomed to Windows and Microsoft Office in schools thanks to Microsoft's lobbying, so when they grow up they keep using Windows and pay for Office.

Everyone uses Windows and Microsoft Office, so most companies and organizations have to pay for licenses for each of their employees.

People know Windows, so they develop on Windows, so they get locked into yet more Microsoft products and libraries and have to run Windows on servers. That's yet more licenses for a Windows and for Visual Studio.

Their business strategy would almost be impressive if it weren't terrifyingly harmful.

I actually really like the rest of what Microsoft does though.

VS Code, TypeScript, creating the Language Server Protocol, the .NET Foundation/.NET in general and C#, the list goes on and on. They're an impactful organization which (depending on what kind of software you build/what you write) probably has a significant impact on your day-to-day experience as a developer.

The benefits of vertical integration can have when you (for lack of a better word) "own" these things can be beneficial for the end-user/developer, ignoring whatever kind of anti-competitive arguments there are.

It's the same argument I hear from Apple users -- Apple stewards their digital experience and gives them continuity end-to-end.

Microsoft -- by nature of owning my OS, IDE, the specification and dev team driving my primary language, a cloud provider, and having their fingers in all of these parts of my digital life -- has the ability to be really awesome for me.

They could also do really sinister things if they wanted and I'd be real fucked I suppose, but that's a(n unlikely) risk I accept.

Haha. Maybe because it works? I do miss XP though. It felt like the only OS that can work as well on a PC and a Tank.