Microsoft rushes to change Windows in EU to avoid yet another antitrust lawsuit

[RejZoR]

15 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

My windows is unupdatable, try me, Microsoft!

Laughs in Manjaro Linux. I love that thing on all my non-gaming systems.

[Monkey Dust]

On 9/1/2023 at 4:55 AM, HenrySalayne said:

You are literally making a textbook example of the fallacy of relative privation.

 

 

Besides, Windows and MacOS, iOS and Android are gigantic anti-consumer dumpster fires, with Microsoft Apple and Google constantly trying to cement their market share by questionable methods.

Tech seems to fall into duopolies. I guess it would fall into monopolies without competition legislation. It is frustratingly hard to escape their grasp too, especially on mobile devices.

On 9/1/2023 at 6:12 AM, Brooksie359 said:

Youtube makes Google billions of dollars each year. Idk where people get this idea that Youtube is some sort of money sink. 

YouTube was loss making for a long time. Hosting video is an expensive business, just not quite as expensive as it once was.

[Brooksie359]

8 hours ago, Monkey Dust said:

Tech seems to fall into duopolies. I guess it would fall into monopolies without competition legislation. It is frustratingly hard to escape their grasp too, especially on mobile devices.

YouTube was loss making for a long time. Hosting video is an expensive business, just not quite as expensive as it once was.

Honestly that is something I have always been wondering. Where do people get those numbers because when Google has talked about how much they make from youtube it has been a very large number so not sure where the bleeding money thing comes from other than random peoples speculation. Also if youtube was truly unprofitable like people had said there were plenty of ways that they could have increased profits that they didn't. I would imagine if they were struggling they would have made moves like twitch has to try and reach profitability and I can't remember youtube making any decisions like that so I doubt the validaty of such a claim.

[leadeater]

5 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly that is something I have always been wondering. Where do people get those numbers because when Google has talked about how much they make from youtube it has been a very large number so not sure where the bleeding money thing comes from other than random peoples speculation.

People get suspcious of it because Google/Alphabet simply refuse to properly and accurately report on it in their Quarterly Financials. They tell you only Youtube Ads revenue, that's it, that is the only YouTube specific thing they report on. The for things like Operating Income that is bundled in all under "Google Services" which is:

 

Quote

Google Services includes products and services such as ads, Android, Chrome, hardware, Google Maps, Google Play, Search, and YouTube. Google Services generates revenues primarily from advertising; sales of apps and in-app purchases, and hardware; and fees received for subscription-based products such as YouTube Premium and YouTube TV.

 

And when "Google Search & other" is 42 billion of the 58 billion total for that collective of services, and YouTube ads is 7.6 billion, I can tell you right now of the 23 billion operating income for "Google Services" not a lot of that is going to be YouTube since it's a smaller portion of revenue and operating cost of YouTube per unit of revenue is higher than for Google Ads (the largest by far portion).

 

You don't have to be an accounting expert or have all the information Google is not showing to figure out YouTube is not a high profit service. Whether or not it loses money who knows.

 

And you can see YouTube did many things to increase profits, YouTube Premium, paid VODs (Movies & TV), Donations, steadily more aggressive video monetization. I'm not exactly up to play with everything YouTube has done to increase profits but they have been doing a lot for a real long time in this area.

[Brooksie359]

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

People get suspcious of it because Google/Alphabet simply refuse to properly and accurately report on it in their Quarterly Financials. They tell you only Youtube Ads revenue, that's it, that is the only YouTube specific thing they report on. The for things like Operating Income that is bundled in all under "Google Services" which is:

 

 

And when "Google Search & other" is 42 billion of the 58 billion total for that collective of services, and YouTube ads is 7.6 billion, I can tell you right now of the 23 billion operating income for "Google Services" not a lot of that is going to be YouTube since it's a smaller portion of revenue and operating cost of YouTube per unit of revenue is higher than for Google Ads (the largest by far portion).

 

You don't have to be an accounting expert or have all the information Google is not showing to figure out YouTube is not a high profit service. Whether or not it loses money who knows.

 

And you can see YouTube did many things to increase profits, YouTube Premium, paid VODs (Movies & TV), Donations, steadily more aggressive video monetization. I'm not exactly up to play with everything YouTube has done to increase profits but they have been doing a lot for a real long time in this area.

When I mean making moved to increase profits I mean aggressive moves. If youtube was burning money like people say it is then I would expect them to make more moves than they have to make the platform profitable. Granted there is a big difference between not being super profitable and burning money like people say they are. Still I find it funny that people think it's scummy of Microsoft to do a rewards program for using their web browser. I mean if people are going to track all of your data might as well get paid for it in some way.woth Google you know they collect your data but you don't get anything. The idea that YouTube is what we get for that seems farfetched to me. 

[leadeater]

16 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

When I mean making moved to increase profits I mean aggressive moves. If youtube was burning money like people say it is then I would expect them to make more moves than they have to make the platform profitable.

Like the proposal to kill all ad blockers? 

 

Also remember you can only do so much, you can also do only do so much without killing your platform from user complaints due to changes. YouTube is kinda gun shy to really do anything big since they have been bitten hard before on lesser things.

 

16 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

The idea that YouTube is what we get for that seems farfetched to me. 

7.6 billion does go a very long way to delivering an extremely large scale video and live streaming platform. I am certainly ignorant on the scale of YouTube but even so I know enough to say that will go very far on hardware, software, contracts and personnel.

 

16 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Still I find it funny that people think it's scummy of Microsoft

There are a lot of people that will find a way to call Microsoft scummy for donating to cat shelters 

 

^ Go on, watch, it'll happen lol

[Sauron]

On 8/31/2023 at 7:07 PM, podkall said:

how is tweaking Windows only for EU instead of everyone an easier or more affordable thing is beyond my comprehension, since one Windows update going live, could mean a change in everyone's PC worldwide as long as they install it or Windows forces the update..

the cost of the change is irrelevant; the don't want to do this because they want you to use edge, so they'll only do it in countries where they're forced to.

[Sauron]

26 minutes ago, leadeater said:

There are a lot of people that will find a way to call Microsoft scummy for donating to cat shelters 

WELL THEY COULD HAVE DONATED TO DOG SHELTERS INSTEAD

[mMontana]

41 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Like the proposal to kill all ad blockers? 

Mountain View done +1 on that.

[Brooksie359]

10 hours ago, leadeater said:

Like the proposal to kill all ad blockers? 

 

Also remember you can only do so much, you can also do only do so much without killing your platform from user complaints due to changes. YouTube is kinda gun shy to really do anything big since they have been bitten hard before on lesser things.

 

7.6 billion does go a very long way to delivering an extremely large scale video and live streaming platform. I am certainly ignorant on the scale of YouTube but even so I know enough to say that will go very far on hardware, software, contracts and personnel.

 

There are a lot of people that will find a way to call Microsoft scummy for donating to cat shelters 

 

^ Go on, watch, it'll happen lol

I mean that isn't even a YouTube exclusive thing. That would help out basically their advertising business as a whole. The amount of money they could get if they were able to make that work is probably more than worth the backlash if they could make it work. The problem is it's not realistic. 

[PocketNerd]

The EU be doing the lord's work!

[E-waste]

On 9/2/2023 at 9:56 AM, RejZoR said:

Laughs in Manjaro Linux. I love that thing on all my non-gaming systems.

Have you tried using steam on Linux, the steam deck is using Arch Linux for new graphics components updates, and an immutable filesystem to protect root from major changes.

 

Proton is incredible and builds on the work of Wine.  Some Wine releases have serveral hundred bugfixes.

[darknessblade]

I guess they do not want to be forced a repeat of the Browserchoice EU window that EU users got at installation of windows 7

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu

 

 

[HenrySalayne]

19 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

I guess they do not want to be forced a repeat of the Browserchoice EU window that EU users got at installation of windows 7

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu

 

 

I'm missing the N versions. There should be a modern N version - the NoGarbage version without online accounts, telemetry and bloatware.

It's should be illegal that Windows Pro comes with TikTok preinstalled.

 

Correction: N editions are actually still available but basically unusable without installing all the bloat of the non-N version.

[rcmaehl]

1 hour ago, HenrySalayne said:

I'm missing the N versions. There should be a modern N version - the NoGarbage version without online accounts, telemetry and bloatware.

It's should be illegal that Windows Pro comes with TikTok preinstalled.

 

Correction: N editions are actually still available but basically unusable without installing all the bloat of the non-N version.

Isn't N just "No Media Center" edition?

[RejZoR]

2 hours ago, E-waste said:

Have you tried using steam on Linux, the steam deck is using Arch Linux for new graphics components updates, and an immutable filesystem to protect root from major changes.

 

Proton is incredible and builds on the work of Wine.  Some Wine releases have serveral hundred bugfixes.

Nah, not in the mood for hacking things just to get them working. I do use and like Linux on my multimedia systems. Windows 11 became such pain in the rear with its draconian TPM and other nonsense requirements that I just don't want to bother with hacking that thing just to get it working. So, there's that.

[LAwLz]

14 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

I'm missing the N versions. There should be a modern N version - the NoGarbage version without online accounts, telemetry and bloatware.

It's should be illegal that Windows Pro comes with TikTok preinstalled.

 

Correction: N editions are actually still available but basically unusable without installing all the bloat of the non-N version.

I've heard that if you set your "Time and currency format" during Windows 11 install to "English (World)", then you get way less bloat. You can (and should) then change it back to the correct format once the install is complete. You do that under settings > time & Language > Language & Region.

 

My theory is that a lot of the bloat that ships in Windows is controlled by which country you are in, and by setting "English (the world)" you don't match any specific country.

TikTok pays Microsoft to bundle their app with Windows in America and Europe? Sorry, but you're not part of America or Europe.

Microsoft wants to advertise Superbowl stuff to people in the US? Sorry, but you're not part of the US.

Microsoft wants to test some new ad for Edge in Spanish countries? Sorry, but you're not part of any Spanish countries.

 

You get the point.

I haven't tried it myself but it seems neat.

 

 

[Arika]

47 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

My theory is that a lot of the bloat that ships in Windows is controlled by which country you are in, and by setting "English (the world)" you don't match any specific country.

TikTok pays Microsoft to bundle their app with Windows in America and Europe? Sorry, but you're not part of America or Europe.

Microsoft wants to advertise Superbowl stuff to people in the US? Sorry, but you're not part of the US.

Microsoft wants to test some new ad for Edge in Spanish countries? Sorry, but you're not part of any Spanish countries.

 

You get the point.

I haven't tried it myself but it seems neat.

 

 

Would certainly explain quite a bit. I constantly see people complaining about ads in the start menu and how programs keep getting installed during a windows update without user input, that i just never seem to get. Either it means i’m super lucky to avoid all this shit, or the fact that being in Aus means MS can’t do that to us.

[Mihle]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I've heard that if you set your "Time and currency format" during Windows 11 install to "English (World)", then you get way less bloat. You can (and should) then change it back to the correct format once the install is complete. You do that under settings > time & Language > Language & Region.

 

My theory is that a lot of the bloat that ships in Windows is controlled by which country you are in, and by setting "English (the world)" you don't match any specific country.

TikTok pays Microsoft to bundle their app with Windows in America and Europe? Sorry, but you're not part of America or Europe.

Microsoft wants to advertise Superbowl stuff to people in the US? Sorry, but you're not part of the US.

Microsoft wants to test some new ad for Edge in Spanish countries? Sorry, but you're not part of any Spanish countries.

 

You get the point.

I haven't tried it myself but it seems neat.

 

 

At least when I installed windows 11 not too long ago, I noticed by mistake that those things, TikTok and Facebook, was not actually installed. The icon was there. But when you clicked on it a little loading bar came up under the icon or something before it opened. At least my best guess is that they aren't actually installed, but they become installed when you click them. It's just guessing tho.

 

3 hours ago, Arika said:

Would certainly explain quite a bit. I constantly see people complaining about ads in the start menu and how programs keep getting installed during a windows update without user input, that i just never seem to get. Either it means i’m super lucky to avoid all this shit, or the fact that being in Aus means MS can’t do that to us.

Same, once they were removed on a new install they have never come back for me.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Mihle said:

At least when I installed windows 11 not too long ago, I noticed by mistake that those things, TikTok and Facebook, was not actually installed. The icon was there. But when you clicked on it a little loading bar came up under the icon or something before it opened. At least my best guess is that they aren't actually installed, but they become installed when you click them. It's just guessing tho.

Yeah, they aren't actually installed, but they are still there which is annoying.

I don't really care about the few megabytes they take up on my storage. I care more about not having them show up in my start menu at all.

 

1 hour ago, Mihle said:

Same, once they were removed on a new install they have never come back for me.

My issue with Windows 11 (and 10 for that matter) is usually not that you can't turn things off (although I definitely have an issue with that in some cases). It's that they keep adding more and more things, so you have to constantly change more and more default options.

 

[wamred]

Wow, somehow it doesn't surprise me that this is regional.

[Alex Atkin UK]

On 9/6/2023 at 4:26 PM, E-waste said:

Have you tried using steam on Linux, the steam deck is using Arch Linux for new graphics components updates, and an immutable filesystem to protect root from major changes.

 

Proton is incredible and builds on the work of Wine.  Some Wine releases have serveral hundred bugfixes.

I was, when they switched to the new hardware accelerated UI, it wont launch any more.

[Alex Atkin UK]

On 9/3/2023 at 1:09 PM, leadeater said:

7.6 billion does go a very long way to delivering an extremely large scale video and live streaming platform. I am certainly ignorant on the scale of YouTube but even so I know enough to say that will go very far on hardware, software, contracts and personnel.

The unique thing about YouTube is the sheer amount of content they have to deal with and the multitude of different codecs they are encoding every single video into.

 

The fact they are constantly chasing newer and newer codecs to try to get the streaming cost (not storage I suspect, as they have to keep a copy in every codec anyway) is telling.

 

I'm not aware of any other video sharing site that uses so many different video codecs as the encoding and storage overhead of that is huge.  When you consider how quickly a new upload usually get encoded into HD compared to how many uploads are happening every minute, I find it hard to believe they are making any profit on that.  The vast majority of videos may not even get adverts because they are just personal accounts with no views, but the encoding/storage cost still exists for those.

[leadeater]

10 hours ago, Arika said:

Would certainly explain quite a bit. I constantly see people complaining about ads in the start menu and how programs keep getting installed during a windows update without user input, that i just never seem to get. Either it means i’m super lucky to avoid all this shit, or the fact that being in Aus means MS can’t do that to us.

I would say I never get that stuff too but I always install Windows Enterprise edition at home anyway heh. Plus I also AD join my computers at home to and GPO most things how I want it. But I can see how the AUS?NZ factor means for the most part we are uninteresting to mass advertise to or it's against our consumer and advertising laws. There's a lot of things here that simply are not allowed.

[Arokhantos]

I wish they would stop forcing Edge on me, and allow me to just use Bing ai chat in firefox.