They’re doomed to lose this because of their bloat. If you think of Microsoft in a steam format (not publicly traded) they could’ve ran a tight operation with focus on a solid product to maintain their monopoly indefinitely. Instead they’re overextending into AI and to cover the cost of compute they’ll need to push for more monetization. Higher subscription costs, forced AI integration and more aggressive data collection are already here.
All of this is pushing customers towards Linux. And I’m talking big customers here. Entire countries are switching currently. This is an insane amount of effort btw. Teaching a million Margarets from HR how to use Libre Office instead of MS Word after decades of habit is not easy so they really had to shit the bed for this to happen but shit the bed they did.
It’s great. We have a similarly wonky rule at our school. There’s some cargo bikes that are supposed to be used by students to make deliveries (the students design and print flyers for other schools and the city sometimes) Eventually the topic of insurance came up. What if a student has an accident? Can a teacher send a student put on a bike? The answer is that the teacher can only send students out if they trust them to be emotional mature enough to handle it. So if a teacher sends a student out and that student has an accident because they’re careless it’s clearly the teacher’s fault for misjudging the student and they would be liable.
The bike has not been moved ever since that rule was put in place.