this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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I dunno I kinda miss this version of Microsoft. They were still shitty and evil, but at least they were trying to be memorable and they were genuinely trying to sell you a computer to do whatever you wanted to do with it.
In the years that followed we started getting buggier, slower software, DRM, forced cloud migration, and AI scanning of everything on our machines and in our messages.
Thus was happening at the same time they were being sued for (among other things) Embrace Extend Extinguish.
Fuck you they were. They wanted to sell you a computer so that you'd install Office. They never wanted you to do whatever you wanted with it. They intentionally changed internal APIs to break third party software that they didn't want people using. This is also the era where they were constantly spreading FUD about Linux, convincing people that merely using Linux meant you were legally liable for patent infringement, etc.
Truth. I had a friend who worked at MS (not in Redmond) back in the early 90s post-IPO when Ballmer was CEO, and when most of the people working there were temps so MS could avoid the legal repercussions of the toxic workplace culture they'd built (harassment lawsuits) and get around paying benefits or overtime, and even then Ballmer was the most personally repugnant trailer trash CEO imaginable. People put up with it because it was Microsoft and endless fountains of cash, but he was an even worse CEO than he was a human being, and that's quite a low bar to limbo under but he managed.