Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of people in the tech world gushing about how generous Microsoft is by giving away its latest operating system for free. This usually comes with an encouragement to take advantage of this while you can, with an implication that we’ve all stumbled into an unusually lucky break and we’re kind of getting away with something if we act fast.
For instance, ZDNet recently posted an article called “With a Nod and a Wink, Microsoft Gives Away Windows 10 to Anyone Who Asks,” in which the author tells us how people who aren’t “supposed to” be able to get the free upgrade to Windows 10 can get it by signing up to be a beta tester, thereby circumventing the original idea that XP users wouldn’t get a free copy, or even Linux or Mac users, for that matter.
That article (and many others like it) go on to speculate about why Microsoft has had this change of heart, and has gone from enforcing anti-piracy policies to giving their new OS away for free to “anyone who asks.” I especially loved this bit of the article above:
“Microsoft is leaving some money on the table, obviously. But the amount is, quite literally, a rounding error for its Windows business, and having a gargantuan user base is more important than that puny revenue.”
In that statement, they simultaneously missed the mark completely (“Microsoft is leaving some money on the table”) and got closer to the truth than most people do (they want a huge user base), but they stopped short of exploring what is so great about getting as many PCs as possible running this version of Windows.
I’m here to propose an alternative explanation as to why Microsoft is so interested in getting it’s OS on 1 billion PCs, even if many of them didn’t buy it. It’s not generosity, it’s not as a reward to loyal users/testers, and it’s not to build goodwill as a generous company who has turned over a new leaf. (Though all of those reasons might be nice side-effects.) No, the real reason strikes me as obvious, which is why I’m surprised I haven’t heard others say more about it. (Or maybe I’m just not reading the right web sites.)
As with Facebook, Google, etc., the old adage still holds true: if you’re getting something for free, then take a look around because you’re probably not the customer, you’re the product. Sure enough, when you go to install Windows 10, Microsoft makes no secret of this, though they downplay its significance with carefully-chosen wording and layout. The primary revenue stream they’re counting on from Windows 10 comes not from selling Windows 10 itself, but from selling the data they’ll be collecting about its users.
Take a look at the screen you see when installing the OS:
That’s a lot of text, so they know very well that the average person will probably go right for the big, bright “Use Express settings” button without reading it. Even when you do read it, you’ll see that they’ve covered themselves by coming out and saying that you’re sending data to Microsoft to “let [them] improve” things. Well, who wouldn’t want to help them improve?! You can also let them know your location, and let them see your location history, and use your “advertising ID” to “personalize experiences.” Clearly an experience that hasn’t been personalized is a sub-par experience. And of course, you also will want to “send Microsoft and trusted partners some location data.” Because, we all know we can trust a massive multi-national corporation like Microsoft with all of our personal data, so surely any other companies that they call “trusted partners” would be cool too, right? These aren’t other corporations they’re selling your data to, they’re “trusted partners.”
“BUT WAIT,” you say, “They do have a small ‘customize settings’ option buried at the lower-left that you can use instead.” Ok sure, let’s take a look at that…
You’ve got to love the choice of language here. It’s all about “personalization” and “improving” things, while only letting Microsoft and their “trusted partners” see your data. Of course, all the defaults are set to ON, because if you set things to OFF, you’ll be a Scrooge who doesn’t want to share data to help Microsoft “improve,” and you won’t get a desirable “experience.” (And did you see they even want your calendar & contacts’ details, along with whatever they deem “associated data”!?)
The second screen of options is more of the same:
I especially love how under the “Browser and protection” section they’re encouraging you to “send your browsing history to Microsoft.” Seriously?!? I get the potential for speed improvement from trying to predict and preload pages, but why can’t this all be done client-side without Microsoft ever needing to know about that ugly rash I looked up last week, or the engagement ring I’m considering, or the software I’m looking up details on pirating?!?
None of this is any of their business! And it’s also no business of companies that Microsoft “trusts” to keep your data safe. Safe from whom?!? It’s already “out there,” as Microsoft, along with an undetermined number of other multi-national corporations, now will be privy to data about where you’ve been every moment of the day (keep in mind Windows 10’s seamless integration with your smart phone & tablet – including their built-in GPS), every web site you’ve ever been to, the calendar & contacts you keep (i.e., who you know, and when, where, and for how long you meet with them), and more. Does nobody value privacy anymore?!?!?
Will computers that come with Windows 10 pre-installed even show these early setup screens to users, or will they basically boot right to a few steps before the Desktop, expecting you to go dig through settings buried in a Control Panel somewhere to manually turn it all off after you’ve logged in? Even if they show these screens to pre-installed PC purchasers, sure, you CAN choose to do a customized installation, if you find the little link buried at the lower-left of the first screen, and then you CAN turn off all of those switches in the custom settings, to stop this data being collected, but Microsoft knows human nature. They’ve designed the language and layout of these options to make it statistically highly likely that a majority of users won’t bother turning these things off. Now, remember that goal of “1 billion PC’s running Windows 10” and you’ll get an idea of how even a fraction of that many PCs (many of which have multiple users) collecting data would make a very comprehensive and very valuable database to market.
…to say nothing of how interested governments would be in viewing this data if they wanted to charge you with something (or go on a fishing expedition to see if they could).
It makes perfect sense from Microsoft’s perspective. It’s hard to come up with accurate (and always increasing) revenue predictions for stockholders when you have a big year the year your flagship software is released, and then a dramatic drop-off in the following years as the market gets satiated. For a while, it looked like the solution would be more frequent version releases, but companies found that people didn’t want to be bothered upgrading every year when what they were using worked fine as far as they were concerned (e.g., Windows XP). This ended up having the unintended effect of showing a lot of people how easily they could live their life without upgrading whenever they were told to.
Then it looked like everything would move to the cloud, so they could count on a more predictable revenue stream from monthly billed contracts. While this continues to be pushed (e.g., Office 365), it’s still not something ALL users will get on board with, and so it only partially stabilizes things. This is why the latest trend is for software companies to try to even-out their annual revenue by shifting away from getting individual customers to pay them more frequently and predictably, but instead to get a comparatively small number of other large companies to become their customers. Then they have a lot less “important” contracts to worry about, and they go from a company trying to sell software to fickle people, to a company with a constant, dependable stream of the new commodity of customer data that can be packaged and sold in any number of ways, to eager marketing companies and others who can never get enough. Finally they’ve hit upon a predictable revenue steam, which will only continue to grow as people become desensitized to it, and which they can continue to almost arbitrarily increase their price on, since they’ll basically be the only game in town with this particular snapshot of users’ habits.
What could be a more intimate look at people’s private lives than what Windows 10 will be uploading automatically to Microsoft? Talk about a revenue stream! It’s stable, predictable, unique, and growing. Who wouldn’t salivate at that proposition?
Us – that’s who. We need to stop giving away our privacy to anyone who offers something for “free!” A company (or government) that can be trusted today (if there is such a thing) may be under new management tomorrow, and regardless, nothing is unhackable. I’m not saying you should never share ANY data, but the amount of data being shared (that can never be undone) is getting out of hand. Windows 10 will certainly be a great operating system in many ways that may make people’s lives better, but let’s not be so quick to congratulate Microsoft on so “generously” giving us a weapon that may ultimately be used against us.