It wasn't too long ago that if you were building or upgrading a PC,
you had to fork over some handsome cash for a copy of Windows.
If you didn't, you either couldn't get a legal copy at all,
or your operating system would simply stop working after 30 days.
But today, Microsoft lets people use it completely for free.
Even though they officially ended their program to let people with legal copies of
Windows 7 or 8 upgrade to Windows 10 for free, many users have reported the free upgrade still works.
And on top of that, even if you just download Windows 10 from Microsoft's website,
and you don't pay for a key, the OS will still work just fine.
I mean, sure, you get that annoying activate Windows watermark,
you can't change the system color scheme, and it's a little trickier to pick your wallpaper,
but other than that, you get the same features as you would had you paid all that money.
And there's still even a loophole that allows you to upgrade
pirated versions of Windows 8 to Windows 10.
So why is Microsoft suddenly giving out one of the most popular products like candy?
Well, it definitely isn't out of the goodness of their hearts.
You see, historically speaking, people were often rather slow to upgrade to new editions of Windows.
There were exceptions, such as the long lines we saw when Windows 95 was first released,
and the hype around Windows XP. But for much of the 2000s, people simply put off expensive upgrades.
No wonder then that Microsoft decided it was much more important to get people
onto Windows 10 rather than squeezing every dollar they could out of them up front,
especially as Microsoft views Windows 10 as its last version of Windows,
and plans to update it regularly instead of releasing an entirely new edition every year or two.
Okay, but then how is Microsoft making money off of Windows then?
Well, although it is giving out tons of free software,
far more people are using computers today than they did when Windows 95 was taking over the world.
So Microsoft is kind of monetizing in a similar way to game developers who use a free-to-play model.
Think about it, Microsoft heavily pushes apps from the virtual Microsoft Store,
accessible from the Windows desktop, where similar to the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store,
Microsoft gets a cut of every app purchase made.
Additionally, Microsoft is trying to get people into their whole ecosystem,
rather than just having them use the OS. For example, let's say you're using Windows 10 for your desktop PC,
and you decide to leverage Microsoft's built-in OneDrive cloud storage solution.
Although you get a certain amount of storage for free, Microsoft tries to sell users more.
So then when it's time for you to buy a tablet, for example,
the idea is that you'd be more likely to buy a Microsoft Surface and use OneDrive seamlessly
on it rather than choose, say, an iPad. There are other subtle ways that Microsoft keeps the cash coming in too.
If you search with a search bar near the bottom of your screen, it uses Microsoft's Bing search engine, which helps bolster its market share
and make it more appealing to advertisers. And Microsoft also serves ads inside of Windows 10,
especially for its own products such as Office 365 subscriptions
if you need more functionality than what the free Office apps provide.
And Microsoft still does make money from selling licenses, of course.
OEMs that make pre-built computers and larger organizations
that want to deploy Windows on many computers, they still pay for copies.
And of course, home PC builders are still shelling out money too
to get rid of that annoying watermark. But overall, it looks like this freemium Windows model is here to stay.
I just hope clippy-themed loot boxes don't become a thing.
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