Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users. After testing these briefly with Windows Insiders earlier this month, Microsoft has started to distribute update KB5036980 to Windows 11 users this week, which includes “recommendations” for apps from the Microsoft Store in the Start menu.
Luckily you can disable these ads, or “recommendations” as Microsoft calls them. If you’ve installed the latest KB5036980 update then head into Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off the toggle for “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more.” While KB5036980 is optional right now, Microsoft will push this to all Windows 11 machines in the coming weeks.
Microsoft’s move to enable ads in the Windows 11 Start menu follows similar promotional spots in the Windows 10 lock screen and Start menu. Microsoft also started testing ads inside the File Explorer of Windows 11 last year before disabling the experiment and saying the test was “not intended to be published externally.” Hopefully that experiment remains very much an experiment.
How did the default attitude toward the user get so hostile? The amount of toggles you need to set just to have a smooth experience with minimal tracking is insane. The people in here defending it by the fact it can be disabled are missing the point: we shouldn’t have to deal with it in the first place.
You shouldn’t. I haven’t. Microsoft is a plague and a choice.
You’re not wrong, but there’s a larger issue here: the fact that there’s an alternative does not make what Microsoft is doing okay. This shit ought to be prohibited by consumer protection law.
Yeah it’s not just Microsoft. Fucking ads in my doorbell app, Google TV, etc.
Putting ads in a product you paid for should be illegal.
TBH I am fully expecting a world where, in the next 10-15 years, some company will make a car that plays unskippable audio ads every X number of miles/km which can be disabled for $9.99/month.
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I hate it as much as the next guy, but I certainly don’t see why it should be illegal (and disclaimer — Debian on all my personal machines, macOS for work).
Should it be illegal for books to have a list of similar material from the author/publisher? Should food staples not be able to list recipes on the back?
I completely agree that pulling the rug out from under the customer should be illegal (i.e., effectively changing the terms of service for an already-purchased product), but having a shitty product shouldn’t be illegal IMHO.
It really goes like this:
I buy product. Product has no ads, and works really well.
After updates, my device starts showing ads and works worse than it had before.
I bought the device. It is my device. I should be able to do what I want with my device, that I spent my money on, the way I like it. If that means I don’t want your shitty ads, then I should be able to avoid or opt out of those by default.
From your thought:
You buy cookbook. Cookbook has what you need already, which is why you purchased it.
The one you purchased it from comes and “updates” your book by scribbling in ads for it’s other recipe books, and they did it really sloppily to boot.
Now, when you are looking for a specific recipe that you knew was in the book before, instead it is an ad for their other recipe book in place of where the recipe you were looking for was.
Sure, you can still find your recipe somewhere in the book, but as you flip through the books pages you see more and more and more ads for their other recipe books, and oh, now they are also showing you ads from some of their sponsors.
You paid for the book. It is rightfully yours to do with it as you please.
The recipe book company already got your money, yet they are insistent you buy more from them, and have even gone as far as defacing your book.
You should be upset.
Yeah I think we’re in violent agreement to an extent — as I said in my last graf, if it’s effectively changing the user agreement, absolutely not ok. But if it’s a shitty product to begin with, then I’m just not going to buy it in the first place.
So yeah, Windows doing shitty things for users who have already paid for the product is definitely not cool. But for all users going forward to have a shitty experience? That’s… shitty, yeah, but I personally don’t think it should be illegal?
Hardcopy images in a book are a bit different from the typical proprietary software doing who knows what on your personal computer. Not saying ads should be illegal but I would argue for software freedom where you can remove ads from any software running on your computer - like you can rip pages out of any of your books.
Yeah, I guess it’s a matter of what the analogy is to “page.” I would say my computer is the book, and the pages are the software. If some developer wants to make a piece of shit ad ridden software, well, great — but I won’t install it :)
You don’t choose your childhood education. Microsoft and Apple offer schools deals to create adults dependent on it - after all they’ll be using it in work too.
so?
This greatly affects the likelyhood of people choosing a particular OS later in life.
This is a direct result of our Wall Street economy. Wall Street demands that each corporation’s stock price shall increase every quarter. No matter what. If that means the customer is unhappy or that a corporation must consume itself from within. Doesn’t matter.
Pretty simple. Stock go brrrr.
Fewer people are buying PCs now that Smartphones have replaced the need to have one for most uses, but Microsoft still has to make more money every quarter than the quarter before because the stock market doesn’t value stable profits.
It got here because it’s super profitable, and that’s all the C-suite cares about, and they’re the ones calling the shots at the end of the day.
I also think that engineering ethics has, in general, been strongly de-emphasized, and true holistic ownership of technical products is now usually held by business and finance types instead of engineers, with all the negative consequences that that entails.
Edit: also, don’t forget the Peter principle
Having control over other people’s computing gives you power over them: you can gain from their detriment. It’s not like everyone is uncaring or greedy but even people with good intentions do not have infinite willpower to resist temptation. When the user doesn’t like a change from an update their choice is usually to put up with it. Defending ads in a menu or opt-outs that should be opt-ins in hidden menus is less mental work than learning what an operating system is and that you can use a different one.
By sharing the source code instead you give up that power - if you fail to be good to the users then other devs can work on it without you.
You don’t give up anything by sharing source code. If anything, you share your power with the world. All other perceived outcomes are attributes of capitalism baked into your thought pattern.
MS doesn’t care about the desktop operating system except how can they control it like Apple and iphones. All the money is in O365 and Azure these days.