this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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The rumor of Windows going subscription based is so cooked. There's no way that happens. It's a shitty rumor based on huge speculation that already has better explanations.
IIRC, it was internal Microsoft file/mail.
E: INI file in the Canary channel.
It’s currently in win11 dev beta, it’s for tracking your game pass and/or MS 365 sub in the settings menu.
That indicated they were tracking subscriptions....
And everyone jumped to the conclusion that it was to Windows. Because that made a better story than Xbox, Office, or any of the other products Microsoft makes.
Turns out, it wasn't Windows after all.
I'm not speaking to any specific reports. I just think that some day Microsoft will make it a subscription because that's where they've taken everything. You'll have to sign up for a new "w365" which will have the office suite and the OS will live in Azure. They will be like Chromebooks, but for Windows. Naturally, there will be tiers for storage and pro apps, a business tier, and a government tier.
I hope it doesn't come to that, but if it does, I don't want to be a part of it. On the business side, I think it's already headed that way. It may not be a subscription for Windows, but it will be thin clients running stuff in the cloud. It's already possible, I think it will be the mainstream someday.
This has actually been on Microsoft's internal roadmap for a while now. The bigger goal is to move to a Desktop as a Service model for Windows.
By that argument, it's been on their road map since before Vista. So that's not really any "news" at this point.