Thank you Microsoft, for the final push
Thank you Microsoft, for the final push
I've been dual-booting Linux and Windows for a while, with Windows as the fall-back option in case I wanted to use Office for something. Now that they tried to trick me into paying a subscription for their AI slop machine, I'm finally, fully out. It was a pain to actually track down and back-up the stuff that was held for ransom in OneDrive, but now it is done.
I recently moved my digital life away from google and microsoft. I previously had the following subscriptions:
- ExpressVPN
- Onedrive
- Bitwarden
- Office 365
And I had a gmail account, which I often used for SSO. I realized that, the total monthly cost of these subscriptions together was more expensive than a single Protonmail *family * subscription, so I cancelled them all, got the family subscription, and now my wife and her sister all have protonmail accounts as well as storage, a password manager, and VPN access. In the process of moving my logins to my protonmail account, so that I don't have to keep my ancient Facebook account around for signing into things like spotify anymore. Coupled this with moving to the federated internet from reddit and instagram
I also dropped office for libreoffice. MS Office provides dubious value over the free competition, especially with a SAAS model.
I was thinking to myself that I need to cancel mine. Then yesterday I got charged $127 for the yearly renewal.
I thought I was SOL but you can cancel and get most of the money back. So it's not too late to cancel and rid yourself of it.
I have to wonder if anyone at Microsoft is paying attention. It’s like New Coke in the 80s. They quickly realized they fucked up and rebranded the original as Classic Coke. I’m wondering if there will be a Windows Classic coming out soon with no AI, no subscription, no forced cloud dependency bullshit. lol probably not but whatever.
Keeping with the soft drink analogy, I think Pepsi tried something similar in the 90s with Crystal Pepsi, which also failed miserably.
If “lime must go up” always, then they need to come up with a better way than product enshitification.
You should try OnlyOffice. It is very similar to MS Office and fully compatible with Microsoft formats. It has fully replaced MS Office for me for all office work. Also it can be easely integrated with your private NextCloud. You can install it from Flathub.
Edit: it also lets you edit and convert pdfs like Adobe Acrobat Pro
Same, Microsoft is about to force my laptop to update and I am about to own zero devices that run Windows.
There is no coming back either, which is what makes the schadenfeude of Microsoft (the dog) really actually catching the car this time so funny and satisfying.
I think it is going to make heads spin how fast the idea that Windows has unassailable hegemony in the desktop space becomes an antiquated idea. There is an asteroid in the sky, and the time of dinosaurs is over.
All the alarm bells should be going off at Microsoft hq and I know they probably feel like they are sitting pretty and feel nice and future proofed in their business plan, it is amazing and makes my heart sing.
Sorry not sorry you law breaking, monopoly chasing, morally bankrupt losers. You might be richer than I ever will be, but lets be honest, that is because I have standards about what I am willing to do for money.
Cancelled mine too. Don’t particularly care about the AI. But I don’t need it and trying to justify increasing the price for it didn’t really work on me.
I’ve also gone all-in on Linux now. While I have a Mac, my gaming PC was left on Windows. Now it’s running Linux Mint and while gaming on Linux has a bit further to go, it’s night and day compared to 10 years ago. This time I feel like I can actually stick with it.
I can finally say that I'm making the move to Linux now, as I'm dual booting Fedora. I plan to try to do my regular browsing and activity on Fedora, while keeping my school work and what little gaming I do (laptop user) on Windows. Hell, once I get confident enough in my Linux skills, I'll probably move the school stuff over to Fedora too.
I'm doing it mostly cause I've read the privacy horror stories, but also because I just hated Windows 11. Like there's nothing about it that is worth staying for... The excessive resource use, random settings being changed that you have to dig to find, the shitty Co-Pilot ads, and the fact I won't be able to use office once I graduate... Yeah no.
Good thing is I'm a cyber student, so guess I'm just getting a head start for a easier grade in my future Linux class lol.
Just cancelled my 365 the other day too. Been on Linux for half a year now and forgot I had it until the news of the copilot price increase came out and reminded me. I was happy I could cancel and be refunded the remainder of the term and get some money back in my pocket!
The same thing happened with me. This was probably going to be my last year anyway, but i noped out real quick after the increase. Only reason I still had it was because I had some stuff in OneDrive that I was slowly backing up elsewhere. That just gave me the motivation to take care of it finally.
Same across the board.
I stopped buying Skype credit once subscriptions were forced.
Yes, even though I did not have a subscription, watching them do stuff like this every 2 weeks for the last year or more is what finally pushed me off to Linux as well. I got my parents moved over as well though, and they did have a subscription previously.
Deleted my Microsoft account yesterday!
What I've done is just bought a second hand key for Office 2014, and it works like a charm. Got it for like $10, and no money went to M$, and it has been working for several years without a problem.
For my personal desktop, at least. For my laptop rocking Linux I've been using LibreOffice without a problem.
Just going to mention that if you're okay with non-FOSS office software, I really like Softmaker's suite (their buy-once non-subscription version).
Have you tried running Office in a bottle?
It's good to see the KDE wallpaper in the background.