[HN Gopher] Microsoft Edge's new 'Buy now, pay later' feature is...
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Microsoft Edge's new 'Buy now, pay later' feature is the definition
of bloatware
Author : JCWasmx86
Score : 454 points
Date : 2021-11-20 13:52 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.xda-developers.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.xda-developers.com)
| andy0x2a wrote:
| Microsoft needs to do everything they can to promote Edge in
| order to capture market share.
|
| Edge and Microsoft have nowhere near the browser share needed to
| pull this behavior. And this differentiator is a detractor for me
| rather than a useful feature.
|
| But then again this wasn't built for the end-users, this is
| clearly revenue base. Just another reason to not use Edge.
| merrywhether wrote:
| But how much money can they possibly be making from a deal like
| this? It surely is a blip on MS' radar. That's what so
| confusing about dumb moves like this while Edge is still trying
| to gain market share.
| lozenge wrote:
| They are. You can't use many features of Windows any more
| without Edge opening - default browser or not.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| They're riding the line of unfairly non-competitive behaviour
| again. They haven't learnt. Seems they just got better as an
| organisation at hiding their malignancy behind a facade of
| propriety.
| 8note wrote:
| I don't think the market is in a similar place anymore. You
| can avoid edge by using your iphone, and you can avoid
| safari by using your laptop
| grishka wrote:
| > this is clearly revenue base
|
| As if Windows itself is free. I mean it technically is, you can
| use it just fine without activation, but isn't the cost of
| these licenses supposed to pay for everything?
| mastax wrote:
| Doesn't matter how profitable you are, you need to make more
| next quarter.
| grishka wrote:
| It feels like there has to be some limit to this kind of
| "growth".
| siproprio wrote:
| They don't need any promotion. They'll just achieve domination
| through bundling edge with windows and making it impossible to
| switch.
|
| I used to have a more positive version of microsoft up until
| the point they started flexing their evil muscles to push low
| quality products into technically unsophisticated users.
| Edge+Bing+Office+Windows feeding on each other is the greatest
| example right now.
|
| Gladly we acted as quickly as possible where I worked to leave
| github when they announced the msft acquisition, so at least my
| part is covered.
| rigelbm wrote:
| To be fair, if implemented correctly (read "as an opt-in"), that
| would have been a pretty useful feature. The browser already
| allows you to setup credit/debit card as payment options. Having
| an option to setup other payment providers sounds like a natural
| extension of that. The main issue is how they did it: as a forced
| feature screaming at your face, instead of something you have to
| setup yourself. On the flip side, I can see how difficult it
| would be discoverability of the feature if they just stashed it
| in a menu somewhere. Neither extreme is perfect. I would have
| erred on the side of not annoying most users.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| The fact that the payments are interest free makes it clear
| that they make their money by people failing to make their
| payments on time and paying a presumably high (and certainly
| unstated in that box) penalty rate. In other words, the goal is
| to direct vulnerable people at a predatory loan shark. That's
| hardly a useful feature, no matter how it's implemented.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| "Interest-free" is at best misleading and arguably an
| outright lie. There is a $4 fee to take out the loan.
|
| While a flat fee is not interest in the strictest terms, if
| they were using APR, which is the standard way of talking
| about interest rates for consumer loans, it would be a non-
| zero rate.
| rurp wrote:
| To make it even worse it's only interest free if the
| payments are made on time. I'm sure the business model
| expects a certain amount of people to miss a payment and
| end up owing credit card level interest amounts, on top of
| the initial fee.
|
| This is extremely scummy.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > There are no interest fees, assuming you pay each installment
| on time.
|
| Which means they almost certainly make their revenue on payday-
| loan style shafting if you miss a payment.
| froggertoaster wrote:
| I'd rather endure Microsoft's bloated browser than ever, as the
| author suggests, use the browser owned by the morally and
| ethically bankrupt Mozilla.
| JCWasmx86 wrote:
| I think Microsoft did _a lot_ more morally and ethically
| questionable things than Mozilla
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I'm trying to put myself in the headspace of thinking Mozilla
| is more morally bankrupt than Microsoft but I'm really
| struggling with it. I suppose that some people believe this
| means Microsoft marketing has done a good job of rehabilitating
| their image over the last 10 years.
| colesantiago wrote:
| Mozilla is more morally bankrupt after taking Google money
| and letting the rise of Chrome going unchecked.
| jfk13 wrote:
| Do you know some magic formula that would have enabled
| Mozilla to halt Chrome's "unchecked rise", given the
| behemoth that was pushing it?
|
| Despite having only a fraction of Google's resources,
| Mozilla continues to develop a competitive browser that
| provides a realistic alternative to Chrome. But it has
| never had access to the sort of channels and budget that
| Google used to promote its browser.
|
| (Of course Mozilla has made its share of mistakes. That's
| an inevitable part of attempting to do _anything_ in this
| world. But "morally bankrupt" is not a description I
| recognise.)
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| My guess is that there's a fair amount of politics behind
| such a statement. The kind of politics that has to do with
| SJWs, Eich, etc rather than any purely technical engineering
| decisions.
| sirius87 wrote:
| I'm happy with Vivadi, even if its "closed source".
|
| https://vivaldi.com/privacy/browser/
|
| EDIT: Fixed link
| siproprio wrote:
| Vivaldi is slow.
| shmde wrote:
| You can switch over to Waterfox.
| IceWreck wrote:
| Mozilla is no saint especially with their Pocket, Cliqz
| shennanigans but theyre miles better than MS.
| toss1 wrote:
| Having been a very satisfied Pocket user before Firefox
| bundled it, I was quite happy to see the new integration,
| which works great.
|
| So, I am having trouble figuring out what are the
| events/changes that you are characterizing as "shannagains"?
| IceWreck wrote:
| I was mostly referring to Cliqz, but I don't like Pocket
| being forced in the browser itself. And all the
| "recommended from pocket" content on the home page.
|
| Yes, you can disable it but why not make it a preinstalled
| extension that can be removed entirely.
| kreeben wrote:
| Cliqz, the search engine that went broke early in the
| pandemic? Tell me more bout the shennanigans, please.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| >On 6 October 2017, Mozilla announced a test where
| approximately 1% of users downloading Firefox in Germany
| would receive a version with Cliqz software included. The
| feature provided recommendations directly in the browser's
| search field. Recommendations included news, weather,
| sports, and other websites and were based on the user's
| browsing history and activities. The press release noted
| that "Users who receive a version of Firefox with Cliqz
| will have their browsing activity sent to Cliqz servers,
| including the URLs of pages they visit," and that "Cliqz
| uses several techniques to attempt to remove sensitive
| information from this browsing data before it is sent from
| Firefox."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliqz#Integration_with_Firefo
| x
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| True that was bad. But it's nowhere near as bad as this
| step from Microsoft.
| Closi wrote:
| Well the shenanigans was that it meant that users Firefox
| with Cliqz pre-installed had all their browsing activity
| sent to Cliqz servers.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| So there's still Chrome, Brave, Opera, Gnome Web, Falkon,
| etc...
| intricatedetail wrote:
| Please lobby your software provider to release Linux builds. I
| only use Windows because some software do not exist and don't
| work on Linux. If not for that I would have run Linux long time
| ago.
| tw04 wrote:
| I think HN drastically underestimates how many average folks
| would actually enjoy having an easy to use interest free payment
| option. Not everyone lives in the valley and makes 6+ figures.
| With Christmas right around the corner I'm betting a ton of folks
| will welcome the option to spread their bills over 6 payments for
| free.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| These services are trivial to access by... just Googling for
| them. It's that simple. No need to promote them in-browser.
| tw04 wrote:
| Again, you're assuming the average consumer is equipped to
| evaluate who is a valid lender and who is a scam. That's
| simply not reality.
| richwater wrote:
| If you can't take 5 minutes to verify who is lending you
| money, you probably shouldn't be doing it in the first
| place.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I don't know about other countries, but at least the UK has
| a very large website/community dedicated to household
| financials, bills and so on, called Money Saving Expert.
| It's more than likely that such services would be
| mentioned, if your country has a corresponding site.
| Oddskar wrote:
| If you can't afford it, then maybe don't buy it in the first
| place.
| tw04 wrote:
| Ahh yes, the old: if you don't want to get pregnant just
| don't have sex. Nothing better than a condescending non-
| answer to the problem.
| Oddskar wrote:
| Conspicuous consumption (because that's most likely what
| this will be used for) is not a problem that needs to be
| solved.
| Pxtl wrote:
| I'm putting together a new laptop for my very elderly father-in-
| law - he basically just wants it for card games and e-mail. He
| doesn't even web browse.
|
| I was planning an S-mode windows laptop for security reasons -
| Windows Marketplace only.
|
| But first I looked into it and was shocked that they've replaced
| Solitaire, Hearts, and Minesweeper with freemium products that
| are bloated with ads and have a monthly or yearly fee to get rid
| of the ads. And of course, how many ads have horrifying notices
| like "your computer is being hacked!!!!" ? Perfect for an elderly
| and forgetful luddite.
|
| And because of the onerous signing to submit to the marketplace,
| even common open-source software isn't there.
|
| This is a massive step back by Microsoft - he just wants his old
| Solitaire and Hearts and to play some Sudoku, but they killed
| those and replaced them with freemium subscription products and
| the rest of the Windows Marketplace is similar.
|
| So this is tangentially-related to the article, but my point:
| very disappointed to see MS jumping on the modern business model
| for software.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Advertising payment processors is ok behaviour by Microsoft but
| attempting to make Windows actually respect the users default
| browser choice is "improper" behaviour by Mozilla[0][1].
|
| Interesting mental gymnastics Microsoft.
|
| [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/15/22782802/microsoft-
| block...
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29251210
| [deleted]
| devwastaken wrote:
| Apples market share is further increasing. The mismanagement of
| Microsoft is detrimental to the computing market. Someone needs
| to be grabbing control of Microsoft and giving it a singular
| vision. Fire those that undermine it. Less employees, Less
| marketing, more engineering. Heart disease will kill this company
| in the long term.
| marcodiego wrote:
| People have been saying things like this since the 90's.
| History has shown that when monopoly is strong enough, long
| term is long enough.
| nunez wrote:
| Very telling of the financial state of the average American.
| Everyone is hawking interest-free monthly payments, usually
| through Klarna (which Microsoft Store partnered with, making this
| especially strange). Great tool if used responsibly, but given
| companies advertising increasingly expensive crap and how most
| Americans can't save $1,000, you know this will just increase the
| class of the permanently-indebted
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| It all depends on what these interest free payments are
| competing with. If it is credit cards, you could tell the story
| that consumers see through the ruse of credit cards and are
| looking for a better deal.
| [deleted]
| tyleo wrote:
| The fact that Edge lags behind in desktop browser share is
| absurd. Looking at some charts online it appears to have 1/5 the
| usage of Chrome. That's crazy. 80% of people are finding,
| installing, and using Chrome when a default is provided by the
| OS.
|
| On the other hand, the continuous own-goals like this leave me
| unsurprised. It's like Microsoft wants to create a bad browser.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Don't some OEMs include Chrome these days? Combined with Google
| services pushing Chrome and it's future is secure.
| sirius87 wrote:
| A lot of developers dunk on Google for Chrome pushing people to
| sign in to their Google account for sync.
|
| For elderly non-tech folks like my Dad's close friend, signing
| into Chrome Profile/Sync (whatever it's now called) is like
| "signing into the internet". "I can check my e-mail, browse the
| internet". He doesn't remember a single password, except for
| Google and Facebook. He doesn't know "what passwords do".
|
| If any other browser opens up for whatever reason (sometimes
| PDF files open in Edge), he's totally at sea.
| Y_Y wrote:
| To be fair, I use Firefox to achieve pretty much the same
| thing.
| 05 wrote:
| > 80% of people are finding, installing, and using Chrome when
| a default is provided by the OS.
|
| I would be amazed if we were talking Firefox, but Google pushes
| Chrome down your throat pretty hard..
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I would be amazed if we were talking Firefox, but Google
| pushes Chrome down your throat pretty hard._
|
| Exactly. IIRC, every time you use Google, Gmail or Youtube,
| from any non-Chrome browser, you get ads like _" Everything
| works better on Chrome, wanna try it?"_ shoved in your face
| every step of the way.
|
| So no surprise Chrome owns the web when Google owns the most
| visited websites in the world.
|
| IIRC Google intentionally had a weird non-standard <div>
| placed in Youtube that would break rendering under old non-
| chromium Edge to hurt user experience and to force Edge users
| to Chrome which AFAIK was the straw that broke the camel's
| back and forced Microsoft to throw in the towel and move new
| Edge onto Chromium as it is today.
| dgellow wrote:
| 20% of Chrome market share in ~1 year is not that bad IMHO. The
| new Edge is fairly recent.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| It feels like a very "enterprisey" way of thinking. Where
| business deals and partnerships take precedence over user
| experience. I'm reminded of how the Java installer bundled (or
| still bundles?) an Ask toolbar for some reason.
| heurisko wrote:
| I was going to say the same thing. Truly bizarre that Oracle
| did this for so long. There was even a petition about it.
|
| https://www.change.org/p/oracle-corporation-stop-bundling-
| as...
|
| It seemed such a counterproductive way to popularise a
| platform, as it immediately shredded their credibility, to
| seem the same level as that of some random company peddling
| malware.
| notriddle wrote:
| Or it's bundled by their PC, along with mcafee
| kreeben wrote:
| The reason might be because ten years ago we all went home to
| our moms and pops and told them we had finally found a perfect
| browser for them that was much safer and leaner and better in
| every way and even though the switch from IE to Chrome was hard
| on them, they went along. Now they are masters of their browser
| and will not listen to us proclaiming that "well, I was wrong
| to put you on Chrome, but this time I really have found the
| bestest browser".
|
| Also, there's a lack of benign browsers in the market. Even
| team FF tries to make your mom buy things she doesn't really
| want or need, with their Firefox Suggest feature.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Chrome is still the best, by far. No ads and random anti-
| patterns I don't want in the interface (looking at you
| Firefox), no MS shenanigans (10x worse than FF), it just gets
| out of the way and does its job. Bonus it runs DRM (I don't
| like it but necessary evil), casts to Chromecast, Google is
| still the best search engine, etc...
| merrywhether wrote:
| > No ads and random anti-patterns I don't want in the
| interface
|
| This is slightly ironic, since Chrome exists solely so that
| Google can more effectively sell ads on every page you
| visit and track everything you do. I guess sites themselves
| aren't technically part of the browser UI though.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > Chrome exists solely so that Google can more
| effectively sell ads on every page you visit and track
| everything you do.
|
| No Chrome exists because Google didn't have a desktop OS
| at the time and they needed a platform. They developed
| things like V8 to make the browser a better platform for
| things like Maps.
|
| And FF is an example of a browser that exists solely to
| sell ads. Mozilla has no other revenue stream. That's why
| they shove ads into your start screen.
|
| At least Google has some non-ad revenue. Diverse, useful
| products. And I can trust that my data will only be used
| to match ads to me via algorithm, they're not going to
| sell my actual data, unlike most other players out there.
| And there's no ads in the Google products I pay for. MS
| puts ads in paid products, Samsung puts ads in paid
| products, most OEMs actually. Google keeps the ads on
| their webpages, they don't creep into things you pay for.
| pcwalton wrote:
| My trust in Chrome dropped a lot when they started
| implementing things like Native Client allowlisted to
| only work on google.com subdomains (giving Google
| properties a competitive advantage that nobody else had)
| and Dartium (an internal-politics-focused attempt to kill
| JS), proposing WebBundles as an attempt to push AMP into
| the browser, using UA sniffing to roll out Google+
| features only to Chrome even when Firefox worked on them,
| conveniently breaking Google properties in non-Chrome
| browsers, etc. Hanlon's razor applies to some of this,
| but regardless of intentions it's all very convenient for
| them.
| nicce wrote:
| I am sorry to wake you up, but the existence of Google
| revenue is based on what it knows about you. Of course
| they don't sell your data, because they are big enough to
| use that data all by themselves, giving them competitive
| advantage.
|
| You praise them that everything works when you pay for
| Google, but that is every evil companys dream; make user
| hostile anti-patterns for free users and get them happy
| paying customers. The whole Youtube in these days is one
| the worst websites in the web, because of the systematic
| addition of user-hostile features for free users. Do you
| really want to support service like that?
|
| What it comes to FF, there are no really other options to
| get some revenue from the browser. At least they are now
| trying with the VPN.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > I am sorry to wake you up, but the existence of Google
| revenue is based on what it knows about you. Of course
| they don't sell your data, because they are big enough to
| use that data all by themselves, giving them competitive
| advantage.
|
| And? Thats far better than what most companies do. Credit
| card companies for example. There's a whole slew of
| 'traditional' companies that sell products and STILL sell
| your information.
|
| I'd rather they have my data and allow me to use it for
| useful things (contextual search, maps, etc...) and use
| it to match me ads to make money versus companies like MS
| that would make me pay for their products, still shove
| ads in my face, then try to lock me into more products
| with a bunch of dark patterns, etc...
|
| > The whole Youtube in these days is one the worst
| websites in the web, because of the systematic addition
| of user-hostile features for free users. Do you really
| want to support service like that?
|
| Youtube enables creators in a way nothing before it did.
| It literally created a new type of publishing. As for ads
| on free Youtube, it's still far less than all the
| commercials that permeated cable TV since its inception.
|
| Google is far less hostile to users and creators, free or
| paid, than cable companies and traditional media
| companies were for decades.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| On macOS, Safari is the best for me due to noticeably
| increased battery life.
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| Edge used to do this while having all the Chrome QoL
| features that make it better than Safari. Now they're
| eating away at that cause they're idiots. The Windows 11
| era of Windows sucks
| cehrlich wrote:
| I really don't get it. I switched to Edge on Mac a while
| ago because it was more compatible than Safari but less
| bloaty than Chrome.
|
| But I don't think they have anywhere near enough market
| share yet to start milking it. There is _nothing_ keeping
| me tied to Edge, and I haven't even really started
| recommending it to people yet.
| ed_elliott_asc wrote:
| On paper this makes it even weirder, you would think the
| company that made its money from advertising would have
| done this - not the company that made its money letting
| people write VBA and macros
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Chrome is a terrifying window into the internet. To say it
| is the "best" is a bankrupt technical praise with no
| regards of privacy or the fact that Google knows more about
| you than you do. It has a monopoly on this.
|
| Let's not become more dystopian. Google is one of those
| evil companies that hardly get bad press on HN along with
| TikTok.
| cute_boi wrote:
| "No ads" But it's hoarding your data right from the best
| place.
|
| "Google is still the best search engine" And the same place
| where you get 1 page of ads for simple search.
|
| Looks you are contradicting...
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| FF puts ads in the page you start on. There's no ads on
| Chrome when you open a new tab, the default page when it
| starts up, etc... No ads in the UI. And when you pay for
| things, no ads. No ads in my Gmail, on my Youtube (yes I
| pay for Premium), etc... Versus other companies that'll
| put ads in paid products (MS, Samsung, others).
| asddubs wrote:
| chrome does have anti-patterns, they're just far more
| insidious. like being logged into google meaning also being
| logged into the browser. they continuous refusal to block
| 3rd party cookies in any way, due to also being an
| advertisement company that massively benefits from them
| endisneigh wrote:
| didn't Google plan to block all third parties cookies
| this year but have to delay due to regulatory pressure?
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22547339/google-
| chrome-co...
| celestialcheese wrote:
| Yup. Pushed back till Q3 2023 now.
| https://privacysandbox.com/timeline/
|
| IMO it's going to get pushed back even further. Their
| FLoC and other tracking-but-not tech is getting pushback,
| and they're not going to sacrifice revenue for privacy.
| asddubs wrote:
| they pushed it back to allow for more time to figure out
| new ways to do targeted advertisement, because everyone
| hated their FLoC system. this is once again, google
| acting in its own interest as an advertisement company.
| qweqwweqwe-90i wrote:
| "EU's Margrethe Vestager Confirms That Google's Planned
| Removal Of Third-Party Cookies Is An Antitrust Concern"
| https://www.adexchanger.com/privacy/eus-margrethe-
| vestager-c...
|
| seems like google cant win
| saint-loup wrote:
| Besides marketing tactics brought up by sibling comments, isn't
| Chrome pre-installed on quite a few OEM computers brands?
| dheera wrote:
| Because a lot of websites still only work with Chrome. It's
| that simple.
| jeltz wrote:
| Not really. I use Firefox almost all the time and while I
| occasionally encounter Chrome only websites they are very
| rare.
| eitland wrote:
| Actually agree to some degree. I only use Firefox and the
| only page I struggle with is the time sheet at work.
|
| With that I have to open developer tools and disable
| caching.
|
| I'm also happy to say that the brilliant linux-loving
| techies in our IT department is planning to replace that
| web application :-)
| mminer237 wrote:
| How could a website work with Chrome and not Edge? Just user
| agent sniffing ignoring the Chrome and specifically choosing
| not to work with Edge? I can't imagine that's common at all.
| sdflhasjd wrote:
| Google deliberately gimps functionality of maps in Edge and
| Firefox at least.
|
| Definitely not a problem for the wider web though.
| dheera wrote:
| Sadly it is common for products made outside Silicon
| Valley. I even had a website once say that my Chrome
| version had to be between A and B, and wouldn't accept a
| Chrome version greater than B.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Chrome itself benefits from being pushed by Google properties,
| including it being the only ad on the Google homepage. Back in
| the day it took off in popularity after being bundled with
| Flash Player.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Hah. I'm willing to bet the first thing entered into that
| majority of non-Chrome desktop browsers is a search for
| Google Chrome.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| <facepalm>... :X
|
| You had one job, Microsoft. To take Chrome and make it less
| privacy-invasive and more clean.
| Gigamo wrote:
| Considering the privacy disaster that is Windows 10 (and 11),
| I'm not sure if this was ever a realistic expectation to begin
| with.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| You honestly think that was a goal? There's no way Microsoft
| had the goal of increasing user privacy with the engine switch
| merrywhether wrote:
| Their north star should be taking market share back from
| Google, not getting sidetracked with these piddling income
| schemes or anything else. It is worth so much more to them in
| the long run to break Chrome's monopoly than anything in my
| short term. So if privacy is what people want, give it to
| them now and figure out monetization after you've beaten
| Chrome.
| rkagerer wrote:
| _Microsoft Edge's Zip payments integration is already available
| in the Canary and Dev channels, and it will roll out to everyone
| in the stable release of Microsoft Edge 96_
|
| Edge 96 released to Stable channel two days ago.
|
| My prediction is blowback to this quintessentially stupid product
| decision will result in it getting pulled within the next few
| weeks and the firing or transition to a different unit of
| whatever moron approved this PR disaster.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| You misspelled "Promotion to Senior Product Manager."
| moonchrome wrote:
| Yeah I don't have an anti Microsoft sentiment like the loud
| posters in these threads and I'm actually interested in chrome
| alternatives for cross platform browser (chrome battery usage is
| abysmal) but this shit makes me permanently ignore Edge. Bundling
| 3rs party commercial extensions in the browser - no thanks.
| asddubs wrote:
| edge isn't a real chrome alternative from a technological
| standpoint. it's the same thing reskinned. the only browsers
| that are still a true alternative at this point are firefox and
| safari
| anakaine wrote:
| Edge does tend to have far better battery usage, however.
| Just because it shares the same base does not mean there have
| not been optimisations along the way.
| siproprio wrote:
| Unfortunately, if they exist, those optimizations are not
| open source.
| moonchrome wrote:
| I specifically remember them bragging about doing power
| consumption optimization. Microsoft is actively working on
| the rendering engine afaik.
|
| Safari isn't cross platform and Firefox is mostly worse than
| Chrome in my experience.
| asddubs wrote:
| but aren't they upstreaming those improvements?
| ineptech wrote:
| Jesus Christ! Even for M$, this is beyond the pale - combining
| pseudo-monopoly power, dark UX patterns, and high-interest
| credit. What's next, will airlines start dropping adverts for
| payday loans when their flight path goes over a poor
| neighborhood?
|
| It seems like we are in the "extending credit to broke people is
| so lucrative that regular non-finance companies are getting in on
| it" stage of the current bubble.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Isn't this Affirm business model?
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Bloatware is a _far_ too benign term for this. The browser should
| treat financial transactions like the post office treats a letter
| - never mess with the contents, just move it where it needs to
| go. This is a major breach of trust. It pisses me off and I don
| 't even use Edge (or Chrome, or Windows) unless I have to, which
| is rare.
|
| Analog world analogy: Post office inserting advertisements for
| financing into sealed private letters.
| [deleted]
| bckygldstn wrote:
| The USPS inserts vast amounts of advertising into my letterbox,
| and (unlike in most countries) there's no way to opt out.
|
| Getting those last drops of profit margin require you to
| squeeze the consumer the hardest.
| djbusby wrote:
| USPS doesn't insert the ad into the post, they *deliver* an
| ad in the post. They aren't making it and inserting it - like
| what MS is doing.
| dixie_land wrote:
| I'm not a fan of USPS but I agree this is not their fault.
| In fact they're not allowed to "filter" the mails.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| USPS inserted this link into their Informed Delivery
| email to me last week:
|
| https://pugetsoundraffle.com/overview?usps_mid=106545&usp
| s_s...
|
| Absolutely no excuse there for USPS to be sending me spam
| links when informed delivery was supposed to be a way to
| get a picture of your coming mail.
| [deleted]
| callmeal wrote:
| >The USPS inserts vast amounts of advertising into my
| letterbox, and (unlike in most countries) there's no way to
| opt out.
|
| They don't insert it inside an envelope someone else sends
| you.
| voussoir wrote:
| "Every Door Direct Mail" blurs the line a bit.
| https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm
| ht85 wrote:
| "But this isn't unethical, there are no fees as long as people
| pay on time."
| zauguin wrote:
| Noone claimed that there are no fees, there's only no
| interest... According to the zip FAQ
| (https://help.us.zip.co/hc/en-us/articles/4402386045979--
| Are-...):
|
| > Purchases made with Zip are subject to a $1.00 platform fee
| per installment (a total of $4.00).
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| It's a marketing half-truth. "You'll pay a fixed fee instead
| of interest." is the real truth, the "zero interest" is to
| trick people to think there is nothing else to pay. I know
| people will turn their noses up and say "trick people, that's
| unpossible" but it really is a trick, very popular in
| marketing terms, using psychology against people to separate
| their money from them.
| GordonS wrote:
| What on _Earth_ are they doing?!
|
| The release a new Chromium-based browser, Edge - and it's well
| received, people actually like it as an alternative to Chrome.
| Sure, it has a very long way to go in terms of market share, but
| it's on a solid footing.
|
| And now they seem determined to give it a bad name - I can
| imagine corporations not wanting software like this in their
| networks, and mandating Chrome instead...
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Greed/impatience.
|
| Their major competitors have the smart strategy: Skim a small
| amount off the top quietly and forever (Apple, Google, and
| Facebook). The perfect rent-seekers. Microsoft doesn't want to
| put in the hard work/time/cost to create a comparable skimming
| operation, so they take ugly shortcuts like _this_.
|
| For one specific example, the Windows Store is trash. It has
| been trash for years. The visual refresh in Windows 11 hasn't
| fixed what is wrong with it (e.g. majority scam apps, difficult
| to locate stuff, difficult to evaluate the legitimacy/low
| trust). Microsoft needs to work hard/spend resources/put in the
| time to improve the experience, and then it will be a revenue
| generator, but why do that when you can do lazy stuff like
| this?
|
| Microsoft could be selling paid upgrades that add legitimately
| value to Windows that sell themselves, but again that requires
| actual hard work.
| vetinari wrote:
| > The visual refresh in Windows 11 hasn't fixed what is wrong
| with it
|
| They made it even worse. In the old store, it was possible to
| install stuff like python or powershell without an account.
| With the new one, it insists on Microsoft account.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"the Windows Store is trash"
|
| Maybe because nobody needs it. People are used to buying
| Windows software from elsewhere. I am in this category as
| well. When I need software I look by searching I have no
| desire to ever visit those stores.
| tdeck wrote:
| It can be really nice to have an official way to download
| and install software in one click. For a few years after
| the windows store was released, I used to look there first
| for software but I was always disappointed. They never
| managed to make it good enough that anything I wanted would
| be published there.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"It can be really nice to have an official way..."
|
| Windows store started with only being able to serve UWP
| applications that were really constrained in what they
| could do. I just laughed when my competitors went that
| way as they'd lost some rather important features.
|
| As a person I just hate an "official ways" as in my
| opinion they are detrimental to customers but to each
| their own.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| When I used to use windows 10+ years ago, ninite.com did
| this job perfectly.
| freediver wrote:
| .. and this makes it the most valuable company on the planet.
| How did they achieve that in your opinion?
| option_greek wrote:
| Outlook365 + azure ad
|
| They didn't need anything else. Till there is no
| competition for user management and corporate email, they
| will be in business.
| matoro wrote:
| Does Gsuite not count as competition? It even fills the
| MS Office role with Gdocs.
| quartesixte wrote:
| Excel rules the corporate world.
|
| And to a certain extent, Outlook. But that's mostly due
| to sheer inertia.
| option_greek wrote:
| It would and to certain extent it does especially with
| startups etc. Where they dropped the ball is not being
| serious about the enterprise support. There are other
| reasons as well like attaching Google's name to the
| product there by making it non-serious (as in
| free/personal vs enterprisey/serious) due to Gmail being
| associated with personal email. If they are serious they
| should have gone with a separate brand with competent
| support.
|
| Despite all the above reasons, the main reason for the
| current zero competition is because for all
| enterprises,using azure AD is a natural progression from
| their much abused on-prem AD which has been linked as the
| primary mechanism for user auth across all kinds of
| products (MS and non MS). To be honest, MS doesn't have
| to do anything now. Just sit back and collect the money
| (and once in a while acquire things that have potential
| to become enterprisey like the GitHub).
| nicce wrote:
| Does it? It requires internet connection and sends all
| company data for third party. Smooth perfomance is locked
| for using Chrome browser.
| flatiron wrote:
| Have you ever worked at a company that didn't use office?
| I haven't.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Where I work, Office is being used less & less in favor
| of Google docs, so I'm not sure what the future holds. MS
| bundling OS/Office licenses more agressively I'm guessing
| will be one factor.
|
| As a side note, this increased use of Docs is
| unfortunately out of sync with security policy where I
| work. Certain types of data are only allowed to be shared
| through an encrypted portal that auto-deletes the file...
| Unless you put that data in a Google Sheet and hit the
| "share" button.
| chasil wrote:
| Microsoft has never had a primary focus on retail
| consumers.
|
| The tools available on enterprise Windows platforms are
| vast compared to what an individual user can control on
| their standalone machine.
|
| These intrusive new Edge features have not appeared on my
| corporate desktop that is joined to Active Directory, and
| they likely never will.
|
| For individual consumers that prefer Chrome, it is likely
| time to install and learn a new operating system.
|
| Google could take some action to stop this. There could be
| a legal approach involving antitrust, but Google has its
| own problems with that issue at the moment, and action
| would likely have to be coordinated with Mozilla.
|
| Alternately, Google could force technologies into Chromium
| that compromise Microsoft, but are not sufficiently hostile
| to prompt a fork.
|
| I have thought that a tight binding of Go into Chromium,
| similar to Mozilla's actions with Rust, might make the
| entire market rethink C# and the .NET CLR.
|
| Kotlin can also be deployed at the JavaScript layer, and
| that would be an interesting platform to force-feed to
| Edge.
|
| Google has likely already had extensive internal
| discussions on transforming Chromium into a poison pill for
| Windows.
| bogwog wrote:
| > How did they achieve that in your opinion?
|
| Because the FTC is asleep at the wheel.
| [deleted]
| warner25 wrote:
| I've used Windows and Linux interchangeably since 2005, but for
| the past year I was very happy with Windows 10 and the new
| Chromium-based Edge. I was able to turn off or remove all the
| distracting elements, and it was clean and fast. Then I got a
| new laptop recently and decided, for various reasons, to use
| Linux again as my host operating system, but it was honestly
| not easy to justify because my old Windows 10 install was so
| good. Now, from everything I've seen about Windows 11 (haven't
| tried it yet myself, admittedly) and things like this about
| Edge, I'm feeling like I escaped the Microsoft ecosystem just
| in time!
| wpietri wrote:
| It makes sense if you are an amoral product manager at a large
| company with monopolistic tendencies.
|
| The way I see it, there are two basic economic activities:
| value creation and money extraction. Classic open source is
| totally the former. Ditto the sort of artist painting murals in
| the alleys of San Francisco. [1]
|
| Most things end up with some of both. E.g., all the
| entrepreneurs on HN who have a good idea and make a product.
| Value creation is where they start, but they need to pay the
| bills, so they then turn to monetization.
|
| But for some people, they start with cash extraction. Their
| first question looking at anything is, "How do I get money from
| this?" Value creation is done grudgingly if at all. So when
| they see something like a browser, they think, "Wow, look at
| all the money flowing through this. How do I deflect a portion
| of that money into my pockets?" Whether it harms the user or
| the ecosystem is irrelevant to them except to the extent there
| will be blowback that harms the cash extraction.
|
| To me that's the ethics of a parasite and it's revolting. But
| to a disturbing number of people, that's just good sense.
|
| [1] E.g. https://www.precitaeyes.org/
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| What choice does a corporation have? Use any windows products
| in your corporation? Edge will get installed whether you like
| it or not. This is an abusive position tbh.
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| Edge is incredible in terms of UI (vertical tabs and
| collections are incredible), but I switched from Chrome because
| it was less bloaty and spyish. It's quickly becoming worse than
| Chrome here, it's like they're doing everything they can to
| make me switch to Vivaldi or Brave
| michalstanko wrote:
| Both Vivaldi and Brave have their advantages, but I had
| switched away from them. Vivaldi was too slow at times and
| some keyboard shortcuts in some apps (Google Docs, etc.)
| didn't work. Brave doesn't support Netflix and some other
| streaming services (for a noble reason, I believe, but - in
| the end, it just didn't work).
|
| I used to love and use Opera back in 2000's. These days, I
| can't find a single browser that has all I want, so I ended
| up using multiple ones all the time.
| MrZander wrote:
| What do you mean Brave doesn't support Netflix? I've never
| had any issues.
| mminer237 wrote:
| Brave definitely supports Netflix. It just asks if you want
| to enable DRM first. It's an option, like in Firefox, but
| it shouldn't be hard to enable at all. It asks you when
| needed.
| 1_player wrote:
| The world revolves on the Internet, and all browsers are
| absolute crap, for one reason or the other. As software
| engineers, we should be ashamed it's got to this point.
|
| The thing that saddens me the most is what Mozilla has
| become. Now the choice is who we get spied from, or Safari
| which is available only if you're willing to be tied to
| Apple's walled garden.
|
| If only Brave could pull their head out of the crypto ass
| and release a decent, crypto free and paid version of their
| browser. But crypto pays more, like spying pays more, so
| we're left with shitty software running the world.
|
| /rant
| pid-1 wrote:
| +1
|
| I want to pay for stuff so I know the services I buy have
| good incentives.
|
| I'm currently using Fastmail, 1Password and trying out
| Zorin OS. A paid browser would be an awesome addition to
| the stack.
| benbristow wrote:
| > A paid browser would be an awesome addition to the
| stack
|
| And we're back to Netscape and early Opera again! History
| tends to repeat itself.
| behnamoh wrote:
| It seems you're also doing everything you can to avoid the
| good old Firefox!
|
| But seriously, I switched from Chrome to FF a year ago and
| never looked back. It's way different than the FF we used to
| know.
| shados wrote:
| Bad product management. You can bet the team is like "WTF are
| you doing asking for this?!", and they're like "we need to hit
| or OKRs and I need an impactful $$$ win to get my promotion,
| deal with it".
| Oddskar wrote:
| Yupp. This reeks of a bad PM that is doing everything they
| can do get the next promotion and completely disregarding the
| big picture.
| warning26 wrote:
| Exactly this -- Edge is clearly being ruined by PMs + OKRs.
| You can see it in every bad decision they make.
|
| "But see! Offering a misleading 'switch to recommended
| settings?' dialog has increased Bing use by 5% since last
| quarter! Promote me!"
| charles_f wrote:
| I can picture with hi-fi some CVP in a meeting asking "how do
| we monetize that? " and a "pm" presenting their fantastic
| idea
| qsort wrote:
| I swear I don't get it at all. I'm not even mad, it's just
| depressing.
| walrus01 wrote:
| microsoft is often the very definition of something like "a
| camel is a horse designed by committee"
| e-clinton wrote:
| It's just a piece of software they're trying to monetize. Not
| sure Microsoft would make more money if usage were higher without
| doing things like this. I agree that it's annoying, I use and
| like the browser.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Lol, nice to see the MS of the 90s is still living strong behind
| the facade!
|
| inb4 "but they had pinky promised they've changed!"
| havkom wrote:
| Typical supoptimization that is probably suggested by some
| management consultant that has been hired by some department by
| an incompetent manager that him/herself is struggling (due to
| incompetence).
| vidanay wrote:
| I've been on the precipice of dumping Edge based on their
| constant re-enabling of the shopping popups, this might be the
| shove from behind that makes me jump.
| bagacrap wrote:
| I don't use these services, but it's hard to see this as anything
| but a value judgement against "buy now pay later" schemes. If we
| set that aside, and (for the sake of argument) recognize this
| service as value-adding for many users, it does seem to be in
| line with the rest of that feature (the option hooks into
| Chromium's autofill/payments integration, so you'd usually see
| saved credit cards here).
|
| In fact I don't really see what the difference is between this
| and a credit card (where you do pay later, after all, hence
| "credit"). Is it that it shows even before you've signed up for
| Zip? So it's equivalent to asking if you want to sign up for a
| new credit card. I guess that's somewhat annoying. And being
| unable to disable it is also annoying, but equivalent to the
| exact same schemes I see baked into the merchant site all over
| the web.
|
| Does anyone know why Zip isn't already implemented as a credit
| card with delayed interest rates?
| 05 wrote:
| The service is one of the many predatory lending services that
| exploits the poor to further the class gap..
|
| https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-08-11/sleek-new-...
| htk wrote:
| "To further the class gap" I personally don't like the
| service but that's quite the leap.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| The value judgement is because they target the people that
| can't afford it by making them think they can.
|
| This kind of scheme works fine if you're good at managing
| finances. You can plan ahead and set the money for the
| repayments aside. Though if you are good at it, I wouldn't see
| why you'd bother.
|
| Unfortunately, the kind of people that _need_ this kind of
| scheme to buy stuff, are generally really bad at managing their
| finances. Otherwise they would have had buffer savings and
| could buy the thing just out of pocket. In the end it brings
| them only deeper into the debt hole.
|
| The only thing I'd take a loan (mortgage) for is a house,
| personally. Even my cars I paid all in cash (my most expensive
| one was a 2200 euro Volvo and it served me well for many years
| :)
|
| Personally I think ethically it's similar to the tobacco
| industry. They're exploiting a weakness of some people. Sure,
| they could resist it but some people are just not capable of
| doing so.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| But should Microsoft be making value judgements or just
| support any reasonably popular payment methods?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Building a specific vendor's extremely high interest rate
| lending operation into the browser itself is making a value
| judgment.
| joenathanone wrote:
| If they want their brand to be trusted they need to be
| constantly making good value judgments.
| monsieurgaufre wrote:
| Not enough people seem aware that you can remove Edge using
| winget and be done with it.
| capableweb wrote:
| Not enough people seems to be aware that even if you remove
| Edge, Microsoft will force you to open certain web links in
| their own browser, even going as far as to prevent
| Mozilla/Firefox for brute-force solving the problem.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| i use firefox. been using this since 2004 i think. never was i
| forced to "abandon" it, it worked for me. I can't say the same
| about how IE/Edge is handling stuff. Why? i get the whole
| "cooperation" with businesses and financial institutions who see
| this as "free real estate" but i am not sure how to take it. eh.
| Causality1 wrote:
| I agree with everything the author said, except for _If you don't
| want a browser that encourages unnecessary purchases, I recommend
| Firefox_ which made me nearly piss myself laughing. Mozilla can
| 't go a month without shilling some new garbage on the Update or
| New Tab screen.
| sedatk wrote:
| Everybody treats this news like something out of thin air.
| Microsoft Edge has been "enhancing" e-commerce transactions for a
| while now: coupons, cashback, and price histograms. I actually
| like those features although their usefulness is mostly marginal.
| When Edge ensures me that I'm buying it at the lowest price, it's
| reassuring and welcome, but the coupon experience is 99% "we've
| tried all possible coupons and sorry, nothing worked". I don't
| even know what's up with the cashback thing.
|
| Anyway, Edge has been integrating these features for a while,
| they've been welcomed or at least haven't been an issue. Now,
| they added another feature which seems like a minor extension to
| what's already there, and I can understand why the team didn't
| think it wasn't as big a deal as it was discussed here.
|
| I like Edge, I think it's the only candidate that can surpass
| Chrome at some point, and I want the team to be positively
| responsive to the criticism here. Fingers crossed.
| jetrink wrote:
| The company had over 100B in revenue last year. By adding this
| sleazy anti-feature, Microsoft is sacrificing its reputation and
| the quality of a high-profile product for probably a few million?
| That's a few thousandths of one percent of their total revenue. I
| don't understand it.
| marcodiego wrote:
| > Microsoft is sacrificing its reputation and the quality of a
| high-profile product for probably a few million?
|
| Which reputation?
| wpietri wrote:
| For sure. I'm old enough that Microsoft's reputation is that
| of an exploitative, dirty-dealing, would-be monopolist. They
| appeared to get better after the DOJ and a number of
| competitors knocked them from their dominant position. But
| I've always suspected that was a change forced by
| circumstance, not some sort of deep inner improvement.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| The reputation they have of being the makers of the most
| popular desktop operating system and most popular office
| productivity suite. You may not like them but most of the
| businesses in the world use their software. I can't believe
| they think it's worth it to harm their professional image in
| exchange for whatever pennies they will be making by sticking
| in a layaway feature into their browser.
| alerighi wrote:
| They don't care about reputation. Nearly every Windows user
| hates Windows, everyone knows that Windows it's a bad
| operating system, still it is the operating system that
| everyone uses for the fact that comes installed on every
| computer that you purchase and most people doesn't even
| know than an alternative exists.
| scantron4 wrote:
| I doubt most people hate windows 10.
| anakaine wrote:
| I'm with you on this. Win 10 is a solid OS.
| tdeck wrote:
| They'll still be the most popular of both of those things.
| I think what the parent commenter is getting at is that
| Microsoft already had a reputation for being greedy and
| forcing unwanted features onto users. It would be more
| accurate to say this jeopardizes their ongoing attempt to
| rehabilitate their image.
| colesantiago wrote:
| Are you being forced to use it?
| ratww wrote:
| I'm not forced anymore because I work at a nice company,
| but in several jobs I had before: yes. I was forced to
| use a specific OS, and a specific browser. It is still
| extremely common in enterprise.
|
| And before you say I "should have changed jobs": not
| everyone is a developer who can easily job-hop like me,
| though.
| colesantiago wrote:
| So you're being forced to 'By now pay later' by
| Microsoft?
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| No, but the question was about Microsoft's reputation.
| Whether I use the pay over time feature or not, Microsoft
| are hurting their reputation as a software maker and
| therefore their revenue from their paid products by
| signaling their willingness to insert irrelevant features
| into their software.
| colesantiago wrote:
| OK, so you're not being forced to use it which means you
| have the choice to ignore it so it's not required.
| s5fs wrote:
| .....yes.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| While I generally agree with your sentiment, you are making a
| wild guess on how much revenue this brings/is projected to
| bring, and then you base your entire argument around it.
| FDSGSG wrote:
| This comment reads super out of touch to me.
|
| I think you are hugely underestimating the audience for this
| kind of thing. This can be worth far far more than a few
| millions.
|
| But yeah, of course for the rich HN audience this is an anti-
| feature. For the folks taking payday loans? Probably not!
| smegger001 wrote:
| don't assume everyone on her is rich. Not everyone on hacker
| news works in silicon valley but they are more likely to
| understand compound interest.
| FDSGSG wrote:
| Not everyone here is rich, but the demographics certainly
| skew in that direction.
|
| The deeply out of touch comments here demonstrate that,
| even if this feature isn't appealing to HN users, it is
| appealing to a very wide range of people whom you are
| unlikely to see on HN.
| bladegash wrote:
| I've been generally happy with my switch to Edge, but am not a
| huge fan of this. However, I think you may be overestimating
| how much a non-technical person would dislike a feature like
| this. If anything, many would likely be happy to have layaway
| at their fingertips for all of their purchases.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > If anything, many would likely be happy to have layaway at
| their fingertips for all of their purchases.
|
| A severe indictment of society's innumeracy.
| quenix wrote:
| How is that so?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Nobody lends money for free:
|
| https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/articles/introduci
| ng-...
|
| > shoppers break their purchases into equal installment
| payments, often interest-free, which can allow shoppers
| to get their purchase upfront, instead of having to wait
| until it's paid in full.
|
| From the commenter JennaScout on the same page:
|
| > Looks like you neglected to mention the $4 flat fee in
| the article?
|
| >On a $35 purchase, that's 11% of the purchase cost
| spread over one month. Annualized, that's an astounding
| 250% APY. Even the most predatory credit cards top out at
| around 40% APY.
|
| >All you've done is just baked predatory loans into your
| browser. Honestly, you should be ashamed.
| foldr wrote:
| >Nobody lends money for free:
|
| Sure they do. Get a credit card with 0% interest on
| purchases and pay the balance before the interest free
| offer period expires. In many cases these cards to not
| charge any fee associated with the purchase.
|
| I understand that the credit card company will still make
| a profit in many cases - even when they don't manage to
| collect any interest or fees. But the loan is free from
| the cardholder's point of view.
| 13of40 wrote:
| It's the rational choice with inflation on the horizon,
| isn't it?
|
| Edit: No interest, but a flat fee, so possibly not worth
| it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Depends what the interest rate is. In my 25 adult years
| of living in the US, I have seen no "buy now, pay later"
| scheme for small purchases with no collateral that
| results in the costs for the financing being less than
| the gains from investing.
|
| The only one that works is the 2%+ credit card rewards,
| and that is because people who are not paying with credit
| cards that earn rewards subsidize those who do because
| merchants do not offer a lower price for the non rewards
| payment methods.
| [deleted]
| freefal wrote:
| I wouldn't use this because it just seems like a hassle but
| how are 4 interest-free installments worse than paying
| upfront?
|
| I'm unclear on Zip's business model so appreciate I could
| be missing something here.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| As I noted in an adjacent comment, there is a $4 flat
| fee, and it is reasonable to assume the lender has
| expenses to pay, such as payroll and profit seeking
| investors, so there must be a cost to using their
| financing.
|
| Regardless of what the marketing says, nothing is ever
| "free". Typically, these types of small time lending
| operations for retail purchases with no collateral depend
| on people without impulse control control and poor cash
| flow management buying things they should not and then
| collecting a slow drip of money from some portion of them
| who will not be able to pay it off for a long time.
|
| Not that I think it should be illegal, but it is
| generally considered to be a bottom feeder business, one
| that the esteemed people who work at Microsoft might be
| above. But apparently, they are not, and hence it is on
| Hacker News as a controversy.
| gifnamething wrote:
| > it is reasonable to assume the lender has expenses to
| pay, such as payroll and profit seeking investors, so
| there must be a cost to using their financing.
|
| >Regardless of what the marketing says, nothing is ever
| "free"
|
| In a world of low-interest rates, plentiful venture
| capital, and penetration pricing, things are often better
| than free.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Sometimes, but I do not see how it is possible in this
| case. That type of thing is done temporarily to gain a
| monopoly via network effects and then establish pricing
| power. If you cannot achieve that, then it is giving away
| money.
| [deleted]
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| I think this absolutely should be illegal. Not the loan
| itself, but calling it interest-free should be.
| taotau wrote:
| As well as the $4 fee mentioned, Zip and co also charge
| the merchant - in my country, 30 cents per transaction
| and 4-6% commission. Late payment interest is probably
| just gravy.
|
| With schemes like these, all customers ultimately end up
| paying for this regardless if you use the service or not
| as merchants will have to add the costs to their prices.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| I think most of the non-technical people I know would look at
| this and say "why is Microsoft trying to feed me some weird
| payday loan scam?"
| azinman2 wrote:
| That feels very much like an ivory tower opinion. Payday
| loans, layaway plans, etc are very popular for many who
| live paycheck to paycheck.
| smegger001 wrote:
| layaway is just stupid. if you can afford to make a
| monthly payment and get it in six months you can save the
| money for six months and collect the interest. living pay
| check to pay check doesn't enter into it. if you cant
| afford it you can't afford it.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| And they're still bad. What's your point?
| bladegash wrote:
| Really? Because Amazon has done the same thing (in a
| different context) and I haven't heard so much as a
| whimper.
| jeltz wrote:
| Don't know about Amazon since they are irrelevant in my
| country but Klarna has gotten a lot of heat for this here
| in Sweden. Maybe the American market does not care but
| there are markets where pay day loans will hurt your
| reputation a lot.
| bladegash wrote:
| These are not pay day loans. It is unsecured debt the
| same as a credit card. For a more specific example, this
| to me is no different than a Department store (e.g.,
| Macy's, Target, Sears, etc.) asking if you want to sign
| up for their store card when checking out. This isn't
| new, at least in the US. It is just taking place via a
| new medium (it's really not, but it's new for Microsoft
| at least).
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Meanwhile nearly every corp on earth supplies their employees
| with windows laptops. So besides being shitty moneygrabbers,
| there's no way you can avoid them.
|
| IMO Microsoft is actively working to make computing more
| horrible.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| The product manager behind this cares about having numbers to
| show their manager and isn't concerned about the potential
| reputational impact it might have on the company as a whole.
| Their manager likewise will be happy to report in turn to their
| manager that they've increased revenue by a large amount. It's
| peanuts to the company but could be a large increase for that
| particular product which is what the managers get rewarded on.
| marcodiego wrote:
| People use office because they need a feature or
| compatibility. Nobody chooses software based on reputation.
| speed_spread wrote:
| The commercial value of software is _nothing but
| reputation_. Would you buy software tools from a company
| about to go bankrupt? You pay for software with the idea
| that what you're not trusting your data and operations to a
| technological dead end. The problem here being that nobody
| is paying for software anymore in an ad-revenue model,
| meaning that companies have much less to lose doing that
| kind of shit.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Nobody chooses software based on reputation._
|
| I guess you didn't live through the "Nobody got fired for
| buying IBM" era, which later became the "Nobody got fired
| for buying Microsoft" era that seems to be ending.
| slac wrote:
| It is now the "nobody got fired for buying a Gartner
| report" era.
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| Corporate clients definitely pick based on reputation. Why
| do you think Teams is bigger than Slack
| azalemeth wrote:
| I'd argue that Teams is bigger than Slack because
| Microsoft pulled a fast one, exploited their monopoly,
| and included it "for free" with the rest of their
| licenses, rather than getting people to sign up de novo.
| The fact that it's worse in every meaningful way than the
| competition, yet far wider used, highlights the whole
| problem quite neatly.
| mattkevan wrote:
| We have to use teams because teams is free. Despite it
| being terrible. There was also a push for us to switch
| from Miro to Microsoft whiteboard. Until a senior manager
| actually had to use whiteboard and they realised it was
| terrible.
| ryantgtg wrote:
| Don't they "choose" Teams because it integrates with
| outlook/sharepoint/etc? That seems to be the case at my
| job. Basically, Teams replaced Skype.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Because of Office license lock-in, not reputation.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Part of it is rational, because they see lots of
| chaos/noise in the market while having to make too many
| decisions. Following the "best practices" only saves them
| decision-making time. Might not be the "best" in
| practice, but at least they don't have to examine a
| gazillion options that are available.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Teams is bigger than slack? Like, the executable?
|
| Teams is an abomination; something to be cast into the
| fires of Mount Doom. Slack is miles better for everyday
| communication.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| I agree its absolutely awful but Teams _is_ far bigger
| than Slack, I 'm not sure why you'd argue that.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| My sample size of three large companies, two use Slack.
| Boom.
|
| (I did move the goalposts from "deployment size" to
| "quality").
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> Nobody chooses software based on reputation.
|
| That's why Google has been so successful with Stadia.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Stadia is a service. Actually very few people have the
| luxury of being able to choose their software. When
| compatibility, previous knowledge or an specific feature
| is key, people simply can't choose.
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| Stadia has no backwards compatibility, established user
| base, or ecosystem lock-in. Gmail and Android do, so
| despite having many of the same issues as Stadia, they're
| incredibly popular
| gman83 wrote:
| Stadia has been great for me. I just love it.
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| Bad example because none of the "cloud gaming" companies
| have been very successful
| jchw wrote:
| Stadia isn't even a good idea in the first place. Even if
| it is the best implementation of the idea, I still have
| no idea how it could ever make much sense. Other players
| in the space, like GeForce Now, don't exactly look
| appealing either.
| 41b696ef1113 wrote:
| I think the value proposition is definitely there for a
| "rent a gaming pc" service. Cost/library/performance are
| thorny problems to solve, but if I were able to ditch my
| Windows PC[0] for a robust solution, I could consider it.
| Seemingly the only way I would possibly be able to
| utilize a current generation Nvidia equivalent card.
|
| [0] I use Linux, but no, Proton is not fully there.
| Plenty of games either do not work or have enough
| glitches that make it unacceptable.
| nitrogen wrote:
| You would need a very large number of colocation setups
| to get latency low enough.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| But looking on global picture and far in future with
| satellite internet - that is easily solvable, but
| technical issues on running those games in Stadia are
| least things that people are concerned about.
|
| My personal preferences is owning a game library, because
| not always I play games, that require co-op or
| connection, but if the future is that you are opening
| browser and playing game from vast library of games on
| TV, for wich you pay subscription fee, then Stadia is on
| the right track. Actually, Stadia would be only one of
| many services and most probably that would be combined
| with Microsoft gaming. Looking in retrospect, most of the
| things are logical from what Microsoft was doing, but the
| question to me is always about if this is something I
| want as well. Looking on how automatic updates behaves on
| my Windows 10, it seems that 2022 is the year, I am
| abandoning Windows. And Stadia here is least thing I am
| worried about, because I don't.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > satellite internet - that is easily solvable
|
| Starlink's latency is probably barely OK for multiplayer
| games, but not for remote rendering.
| cobertos wrote:
| Idk, I had a good time with shadow.tech? Mostly because I
| use Linux and wanted to play a game that doesn't port to
| Windows well (Roblox, due to anticheat not getting along
| with Wine).
|
| GeForce Now and Stadia didn't have the games I wanted to
| play so I wasn't able to use them.
| foldr wrote:
| What makes you say that? I find Stadia works really great
| for me as a gaming platform. I don't have any issues with
| lag and I like not having to have a noisy console in my
| living room. The only issue with it is the limited
| library, but that's not inherent to the basic idea.
| sangnoir wrote:
| I know it's a niche market, but Stadia is really
| convenient when traveling. All you need to pack is a
| controller.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| assuming you only travel to places with good internet and
| a nearby stadia server
| ineedasername wrote:
| I've been involved in a bunch of large Enterprise purchases
| and reputation definitely was a consideration. We typically
| interview other customers to find out their pros/cons and
| in one case travelled onsite to another customer to not
| only talk to them but go over their installation in person.
| (These were all done without a vendor representative
| present, and I can think of a few cases where it made the
| difference in deciding _not_ to go with a vendor)
| grishka wrote:
| There's something deeply wrong with the incentive structure
| in many IT companies.
| behnamoh wrote:
| I wonder how Apple keeps its sh$t together. I know they
| have made some mistakes in recent years that hurt Apple's
| reputation, but overall it's been successful at maintaining
| a positive brand image and consistent product attributes.
| Sometimes this has been through backing down on wrong
| decisions they made before (e.g., look at the new Macbooks
| and all their ports.)
|
| I think last time Apple "pulled a Microsoft" was when Ive
| removed a bunch of really really useful stuff in MacBooks
| (e.g., the ports-gate). I can imagine some forces inside
| Apple went like "that's it, enough." I'm genuinely curious
| how management in Apple works and how it promotes ideas
| that are truly worth it.
| closeparen wrote:
| In a lot of places the "product design" is just the
| agglomeration of AB tests conceived by a large and widely
| distributed army of junior PMs. There is no one person
| responsible for the end to end experience, no top down
| vision, no one who's ever going to say no on design or
| conceptual integrity grounds. At most an idea can get
| killed for having weak or negative experiment results.
|
| I've never worked at Apple, but my understanding is that
| they have/had gatekeepers, from Jobs himself on down, to
| tell you your idea isn't part of the vision and we're not
| going to do it. And a lot of workers hate that!
| elzbardico wrote:
| It is a lot easier to keep your product integrity when
| your margins are fat because you serve only the upper
| crust of the markets you're in.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Does it? There's now ads in iPhone settings, modal
| dialogs everywhere to upsell you onto Apple Music and
| whatever other features.
|
| https://stevestreza.com/2020/02/17/ios-adware/
| ratww wrote:
| Also constant emails tellig you're out of storage space
| trying to upsell iCloud storage space. Which, fair
| enough, is cheap but the emails are a bit spammish.
|
| On the other hand, is not as if every single other
| company doesn't do it, which doesn't excuse but does
| explain it.
| organsnyder wrote:
| From my outside perspective, it seems like they must have
| an incentive structure that allows departments/products
| to forgo individual revenue if they're seen to be
| contributing to the wider company.
| briandear wrote:
| Apple has one profit and loss statement, that's how.
| saddlerustle wrote:
| And yet, they put ads in the iPhone settings app.
| nunez wrote:
| Where?
| saddlerustle wrote:
| https://i.postimg.cc/YM9xW5B4/40qz3647fuq71.webp
| grawlinson wrote:
| I've seen other crap notifications on my iPhone from
| other Apple products in the same location.
|
| It's a major turn off.
| grishka wrote:
| It feels like they're really desperate to make their
| services ecosystem a thing, despite no one ever asking
| for it. But then services are the one area where it's
| possible to make shitloads of money out of thin air via
| recurring payments in a way that doesn't offend the users
| ("I'm using disk space on their servers and it needs to
| be paid for"). Locking people into these kinds of walled-
| garden services must also help somewhat with hardware
| sales.
|
| Regarding the ports on macbooks, IMO it's just that Ive
| left and so everyone was allowed to design practical
| devices again, instead of admirable but impractical art
| pieces.
| lstamour wrote:
| I cannot find any evidence of this. The only article I
| found even related to this was showing a feature where if
| you had the Siri suggestions widget then you might see an
| App Clip for a store nearby. It works like this:
| https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62559071/how-to-add-
| appc...
|
| The only other advertising system within iOS that I'm
| aware of is the App Store, both in recommendations and
| search, and of course, that Apple will advertise their
| own services for iCloud, Storage and so on.
|
| Is Apple an advertising-based company? Not really. Are
| they marketing-driven? Absolutely. I think the difference
| is about user value and user impact.
|
| Apple tends to go the Amazon route of trying to capture
| value from the interactions users might already do,
| though their iAds network from a decade ago did show an
| unsuccessful attempt to capture the in-app ad market.
|
| But I can't think of the last time I would have seen an
| "ad" in settings, though since App Clips appear in
| settings for up to 10 days once installed, I can see why
| some might think so.
| ant6n wrote:
| They bug you to set up wallet, there's no way to opt out.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I think all the bugging can be skipped if you tap on it
| and initiate the setup flow then exit out of it or cancel
| it.
|
| I'm not sure whether that applies to the wallet but it
| definitely works for Siri.
| Kye wrote:
| You were mostly right. I went as far as seeing a "Set up
| later in Wallet" button and tapped it. Now it's no longer
| showing an obnoxious red badge in settings. Thanks.
| zuhsetaqi wrote:
| Click on setup and then exit and it'll never ask again.
| Never had an issue with that
| saddlerustle wrote:
| Theres nagging to setup Apple Pay (which apple gets a cut
| of), and now they also push trials of Apple Music and
| Apple Arcade - https://postimg.cc/YM9xW5B4/
| withinboredom wrote:
| I remember standing in an elevator with my manager on the
| way to sign a contract for a new bit of software. It would
| cost us 100k per year for this software. I asked my
| manager, "don't we already have this product in-house, at
| least most of these features?" Their answer: "who cares?
| It's not my money."
|
| I think there's not so much an incentive problem, but more
| of a "hiring the wrong people" problem. People that
| literally don't give a crap about anything but their next
| bonus or raise.
| PradeetPatel wrote:
| It has been established that most people are motivated by
| their personal short term gains, they have no real reason
| to care unless there's a positive incentive for them to
| worry about the long term consequences of their actions.
|
| Chances are that those managers will be able to deliver
| their features on time, meeting all KPIs & OKRs, while
| accumulating a stack of technical debt for future
| maintainers.
| SilasX wrote:
| Yeah, but somebody in that chain up the line still cares
| about the reputation and has to weigh that against more local
| goals.
|
| Reminds me of that Better Call Saul episode where Jimmy makes
| a lavish TV ad to find members for a class action lawsuit,
| and finds a ton more people, but does it without getting the
| law firm's partners' approval, and they are angry with him
| because they care more about the law firm's reputation than
| the ROI for a particular case.
|
| Edit: With that said, I'm not convinced this _is_ the kind of
| the king that would actually hurt MS 's reputation outside of
| geek circles.
| dheera wrote:
| Also they only care about the numbers for the next 2 years
| before they jump to another job, not the long term future of
| the company.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| > The product manager behind this cares about having numbers
| to show their manager and isn't concerned about the potential
| reputational impact it might have on the company as a whole.
|
| Speaking as an ex-PM at MS, just about every individual
| contributor PM I've met at MS cares far more about
| reputational impact than making some little metric go up
| (even if it's a revenue metric).
|
| I get that it's easy to use the PM discipline as a whipping
| boy because it's a PM's face that is associated with product
| changes, but I've rarely seen one at MS actively push for
| this kind of stuff. In the overwhelming case, they argue with
| their management structure for a while and get dragged
| kicking and screaming into a decision that they think is
| dumb, but they're told to own it anyways.
|
| Typically the decisions of the boneheaded variety are made
| much higher up the org chart by higher-level middle
| management in the company who don't use the products they own
| and are (often) pretty thoroughly unaware of what their users
| actually care about. These decisions suck really bad too,
| because they overshadow countless other great decisions made
| by truly excellent people in similar positions.
|
| Of course, it's entirely possible that everyone involved in
| something like this thinks it's awesome right up until it
| gets announced/released. I've just never actually seen that
| before.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| I don't understand it either. I can't fathom how none of the
| people working on this had the conscience to pull the emergency
| brakes before it's shipped? How was this product idea
| validated? Where's the data-driven decision making everyone is
| preaching about?
|
| Prime example of organizational failure...
| [deleted]
| pas wrote:
| umm, it's not impossible that the data shows that it's
| "working great"
| ineedasername wrote:
| Not even conscience but foresight to see political or even
| regulatory issues with something that, if implemented the
| wrong way, could amount to predatory lending.
| FDSGSG wrote:
| That is a solved problem. There's nothing new here, 'Buy
| now, pay later' stuff has existed for _ages_.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Sure, some of it in the form of predatory lending
| financial instruments, some of which are regulated. And
| company on the scale of MS entering into _any_ new market
| will draw a lot of scrutiny. One in the business of
| lending money, even just through a tightly-integrated
| partnership, is going to draw even more. That 's a lot to
| gamble on a browser initiative before Edge has the market
| share to throw its weight around.
|
| I'm sure MS would love-- and is hoping-- to collect rents
| on purchases users might make _anywhere_ , but this seems
| a very clumsy attempts. Possibly driven, as others have
| noted, by short-term incentives by product managers
| rather than anything more strategic.
| meijer wrote:
| Also, is there no oversight? Does nobody supervise the
| product managers?
|
| Maybe it should be Nadella's job to keep on top of stuff like
| this.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| managers / product managers at microsoft are the ones
| responsible of ruining microsoft's reputation, they are
| rewarding bloat rather than innovation
|
| i keep trying to make things change (on my level) but it's
| hard, whenever you criticize them, you are seen as a useless
| "troll"
|
| fanboism makes people blind!
| csdvrx wrote:
| Counterpoint: HUGE disclamer: I'm windows fangirl, and I really
| love the new Microsoft edge. I have it on my laptop, tablet and
| cellphone, and I even had it on Linux the last time I gave a
| chance to Linux.
|
| Like you, at first I thought some features were sleazy, like
| the coupon. But after using it a bit, I like it: whenever I'm
| going to buy something on Amazon or somewhere else, I having a
| big popup telling me it's cheaper on this alternative store
| _OR_ that I forgot to clip a coupon on amazon is REALLY
| helpful! It 's like shopping.google.com right inside your
| browser, on a push basis.
|
| It's really hard to make a product that's satisfactory to
| everybody. You may hate the coupon feature - but I love it. I'm
| not a big fan of debt to finance consumption, _BUT_ maybe there
| 's a student out there who needs that to splurge on cheap
| hardware during blackfriday and make a profit by parting it out
| on ebay?
|
| Also, a feature that's just "meh" can be safely ignored, like
| the various things Word can do: no, you don't have to display
| every toolbar if you don't use them.
|
| If the feature is worse than "meh", say if it goes to far, Edge
| can become a source to made a free software browser, like
| Chrome became chromium for people who value their freedom and
| privacy.
|
| And considering all the naughty changes Google has been adding
| (ex: to make it harder to do ad blocking), maybe that's for the
| better: I'd rather have Microsoft employees fix the codebase
| and backport features from upstream, than volunteers: this
| frees the volunteers so they can concentrate on the more
| important (and easy stuff), and leave the boring stuff to
| Microsoft.
|
| Is it more complicated to have chrome -> chromium -> edge ->
| edgium -> something you will be able to use?
|
| Yes.
|
| But so what? As long as it works, I don't care much.
| BlueDingo wrote:
| It's not "meh." I can't safely ignore that all my browsing
| and purchasing is being watched by a computer I supposedly
| own and control.
| goldenkey wrote:
| We all pay more when coupons (cough cough affiliate codes)
| are automatically applied because increased marketing costs
| spur increased pricing. It's not surprising that you like the
| appearance of saving money, your experience isn't special.
| The verbosity of your uninformed defense of nefarious
| practices, well that is quite special :-)
| csdvrx wrote:
| > We all pay more when coupons (cough cough affiliate
| codes) are automatically applied. It's not surprising that
| you like the appearance of saving money, your experience
| isn't special.
|
| You need to think at the system level, and with the time
| dimension added.
|
| Let's see how it would go down if I followed your advice:
|
| - I use coupons, like everyone else: I then save money
|
| - I take a moral grand stand and refuse to use them: I
| waste money
|
| - magically (meaning I don't think it'll ever happen),
| people are inspired by my moral grand stand and almost
| everybody stops using coupons: everybody saves money
|
| - someone doesn't care about morals, and start using coupon
| again: they save money
|
| - they post about this "one weird trick", other people
| decide to join in, they try and realize it helps them save
| money, I do the same, and we're back to square 1.
|
| And from that point on, more people will be using coupons
| until almost everybody again uses coupons.
|
| You can't win a fight against the shared preferences of
| everyone else in the world.
|
| If you think you can, great! Then the best tool is to use
| politics to legally forbid coupons. If it's such a great
| idea, you'll certainly have no problem finding a wide
| popular support for that?
|
| If it's not so popular, then what do you think gives you
| the right to impose your preferences on the majority?
|
| It may seem better to take this grand stand, but to me,
| it's pointless: you are just wasting money to feel good,
| with no chance to do anything else in a larger picture, but
| feel special or more enlightened.
|
| But if you like it, why not?
| Fogest wrote:
| I personally don't worry about coupons, I worry about how
| sites can use data about me to dynamically adjust prices
| to "what I'll pay", instead of giving the same price to
| everybody. From my understanding sites like Amazon have
| even been caught doing these practices before. And we
| already know places like Airline companies do this.
|
| The problem is when sites like Amazon require accounts,
| there is not much to do to get around being tracked and
| having dynamic pricing come into play. At least with
| airlines you can VPN and use private browsing to try and
| avoid this practice.
| csdvrx wrote:
| There are already solutions: use tor to do price
| discovery, or report prices or find communities centered
| around prices like reddit.com/r/buildapcsales
| Fogest wrote:
| Oh for sure, I even use services like camelcamelcamel on
| Amazon to ensure I am getting a good price. It's
| unfortunate that we have to rely on third party services
| just to get more fair consumer standards.
| adrr wrote:
| So Microsoft is tracking all your checkouts? Why would you
| want that? And it's not push, it's pull because there is no
| way to store all data locally and keep it updated.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > So Microsoft is tracking all your checkouts?
|
| If you use gmail or outlook or just forward your emails
| there, I've got bad news for you :)
|
| > And it's not push, it's pull because there is no way to
| store all data locally and keep it updated.
|
| It's push in human terms because it comes to me
| automatically.
|
| Pull is when I have to initiate action.
| eikenberry wrote:
| > If you use gmail or outlook or just forward your emails
| there, I've got bad news for you :)
|
| That's why you shouldn't use those either if you care
| about privacy. You should use fastmail, zoho or some
| other service where you are the customer, not the
| product.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I urge everyone not to ignore to ignore or dismiss this
| viewpoint as I do not believe it is an outlier. Without going
| into the issues associated with 'cheaper' solutions ( that
| might easily end up not being so cheap once you check the
| fine print; return restrictions and so on ), privacy
| implications of MS monitoring your shopping patterns and
| veiled advertising resulting from MS selling user space to
| highest bidder, we need to be able to address those and
| indicate to regular users that there is a real potential for
| harm that could result from this ( and they will have no
| recourse when that harm happens ).
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| This is not new at all for them. There have been advertisements
| in Windows 10 for ridiculous games, and way back in Windows XP,
| Media Player would advertise the most ridiculous things
| including some paid online radio from South America (I guess it
| depended on the region -- today it just advertises Bing).
| zeruch wrote:
| "Microsoft is sacrificing its reputation" their rep has been a
| mixed bag (and I'm being kind, but I'm quite biased, having
| worked for SUN and VA Linux among other places) and they always
| seem to seek trashy new ways to squeeze a few million here and
| there, if users say nothing.
|
| Consumer apathy/inertia is MS's biggest benefit.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Not letting users uninstall Edge is the definition of bloat ware.
|
| Imagine forcing the world to use your little chrome distro. It's
| like they find reasons to make us hate them.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| These buy now pay later companies are going gangbusters. How do
| they all survive when they essentially do the same thing? Isn't
| it becoming a commodity? What's to stop Citi or any other
| traditional bank from adding this feature to their arsenal?
|
| Like telehealth being relatively easy to spin up today with tools
| like Wheel and Twilio - are the margins in this here game the
| moves? Are these pay later companies _owned_ by incumbent banks
| and just rebrands?
|
| Or is it just sign of the times in todays startup space?
| cube00 wrote:
| Banks can't replicate these services because they are regulated
| and would be prohibited from lending to some of the customers
| based on their credit history.
|
| If you can't afford to pay $35-1,000 upfront, the rest of your
| financial situation would be pretty grim.
|
| These companies are trying to dodge regulation claiming they're
| "self regulating", if they don't succeed in pushing that
| narrative then the party's over.
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-03/buy-now-pay-later-reg...
| zz865 wrote:
| I think this is dumb. But I also know the vast majority of people
| are very different to HN devs, and MS could make a lot of revenue
| with this.
| jeltz wrote:
| This kind of business practice is almost universally hated
| though. I really doubt that only HN cares.
| Fogest wrote:
| I feel like every browser but maybe Chrome has tried to shove
| some kind of bloatware into their product. For example,
| Firefox has tried for ages to cram Pocket down peoples
| throats and people seem fine with that. I don't agree with
| any of this bloat, but it seems like people are okay with
| some of this kind of bloat as long as it's only from certain
| companies.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Firefox threw their hat in with the "it's our browser and
| we're kindly letting you use it" crowd a couple of years
| ago. Shame.
| Fogest wrote:
| Yeah, unfortunately I don't even really consider Firefox
| when I am considering browser options anymore.
| freediver wrote:
| Microsoft Edge had a great start, great distribution potential,
| good product thinking and innovative features.
|
| Then in a span of two days this plus
| https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/is-microsoft-...
|
| Shooting yourself in the foot would be a correct
| characterization. Would be fun to see a video of the meeting when
| they decided this was a great idea.
|
| It almost signals a change in leadership that took place at the
| Edge team few months back, and a new product direction that
| Microsoft may regret in the future.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| A few months back, I was actually saying good things about
| Edge, and recommending it to new Win10 users. Now I regret
| that. I feel betrayed.
| bmarquez wrote:
| > I received email from two people who told me that Microsoft
| Edge enabled synching without warning or consent, which means
| that Microsoft sucked up all of their bookmarks.
|
| This just happened to me last week. Microsoft Edge turned on
| syncing without my permission, with options including passwords
| and payment methods turned on.
|
| I only used it for logging into Microsoft products but I don't
| even think I want to do that anymore, due to the loss of trust.
| TedShiller wrote:
| I agree with everything you said, except that Edge had a great
| start
| indymike wrote:
| This is just good old monopoly market capture. Edge is malware,
| don't support it.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| I was close to being convinced they weren't the M$ of old, but it
| turns out they are. Here's to another 10 years of never touching
| an MS product.
| cube00 wrote:
| I felt the same about the new math solver[1] they've added. Sure
| it's useful but it doesn't belong in a web browser's base
| install, this is what extensions are for. Same with Zip pay, if
| you want to use it, you go and install the extension.
|
| [1] https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2021/05/21/preview-
| micro...
| Pasorrijer wrote:
| If I'm not willing to pay for a browser, why should I be
| surprised when the free software tries to make money? Yeah, it's
| not ideal and I'll turn the feature off if it makes it public.
| But I'm choosing to use a free browser instead of paying for it..
| So I can't blame a company for trying to monetize it.
| freediver wrote:
| What happens when there is a feature in the future that you
| also do not like and you can not turn it off, but you are
| already locked in?
| cyber_kinetist wrote:
| The problem is, there is no paid browser you can pay for at the
| moment, so you don't really have any choice in the matter.
|
| If some current/former Mozilla devs fork Firefox and start a
| new paid browser, I would gladly give money to them. ($5 per
| month subscription would probably be the sweet spot for such a
| paid browser program.)
| [deleted]
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Meanwhile, there are no browsers you can pay for.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| If you use Edge, I suppose you already paid for Windows, didn't
| you?
|
| Will similar "features" appear also in Notepad, Calculator,
| Character Map, etc.? Because, technically, you didn't pay for
| them either, they are just free application that got installed
| with Windows.
|
| Okay, maybe it is not as bad as I make it sound. Perhaps it
| would be nice if anytime you display a unicode character in
| Character Map, it offered you an option to buy a t-shirt with
| this character printed...
| nrclark wrote:
| Freecell has ads in it now, and tries to push a subscription
| service. Microsoft is really doing themselves a dirty by
| trying to nickel-and-dime its customers with stuff like this.
| cube00 wrote:
| Notepad now has "Search with Bing" in its Edit menu and it
| can't be changed to another search engine.
| krono wrote:
| And a "Search Bing in Sidebar" context menu option when
| selecting text.
|
| And the default Chromium keyboard shortcut for searching
| selected text with your default search engine has been
| hardcoded to open Bing.
|
| And the new tab page searchbar takes an extra step to have
| it not search Bing when you have configured a different
| default search engine.
|
| And recently they added a neat search button in browser
| console events. Unfortunately it only does Bing, and news
| articles about Amazon worker strikes are not helpful when
| debugging web worker errors....
|
| There's a lot of good stuff happening with this browser,
| but I'm definitely getting close to my breaking point.
| siproprio wrote:
| There's nothing good happening on edge. The only thing
| happening are those sorts of things.
|
| It's also funny how for example they still manage to get
| basic things wrong, like a smooth and instantaneous gui,
| good design (made to improve user experience, rather than
| cross-selling), etc.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| That is brazen and repulsive. I cannot possibly imagine a
| "Search with MSN" menu item on the Windows XP Notepad.
| siproprio wrote:
| God for some reason I just hate these "features" that are
| designed to push Bing and Ads.
|
| I still remember they had to kill cortana because the
| implementation was universally hated by people.
| TedShiller wrote:
| That's why there's Apple
| aceArtGmbH wrote:
| so you want to install the proprietary Safari browser which
| isn't even available for any OS other than MacOS?
| peanut_worm wrote:
| Wow I am shocked this is remotely legal. I don't understand why
| the government isn't doing something. They got in trouble for so
| much less for what they pulled in the 90s with IE.
| FDSGSG wrote:
| What they did with IE might actually have been illegal, this is
| not.
| addicted wrote:
| Why can't these be addons?
|
| And if they really want they can add some nag screens to get you
| to install the addon.
|
| Making it part of the base install is nonsensical at best.
| dreyfan wrote:
| I don't grasp the allure of Buy Now Pay Later. Isn't that
| precisely what credit cards provide? Are they pushing more
| charges to the retailer and less interest charges to the
| consumer?
| bjohnson225 wrote:
| It's popular with young people who can't get or don't want
| credit cards (just look at the marketing for Klarna to see the
| target market). Customers and merchants like it for the same
| reason - it allows a transaction to happen that otherwise
| wouldn't. Merchant gets their money, customer gets their
| product and pays no fees if they repay on schedule.
|
| Obviously if you can't afford an item without this type of
| system then the probability that you miss a payment is high,
| and then these companies make their profit.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| > _and pays no fees if they repay on schedule_
|
| Every single instance of this type of thing that I've looked
| at has had a fee for using their services, either a flat
| amount or a percentage of the transaction cost, so that even
| if they're _interest_ -free (and don't they announce _that_
| loudly!) they're not _cost_ -free.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Presumably, people who use Buy Now Pay Later do not qualify for
| credit cards. Hence the extremely high effective interest rates
| (referred to as some type of "fee" instead of interest).
| Oddskar wrote:
| Which makes it even more scummy to include this in a browser.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > Are they pushing more charges to the retailer and less
| interest charges to the consumer?
|
| This is my understanding of how the "no-interest" BNPL offers
| work. You can buy a Peloton bike and finance it through Affirm
| for 0% interest. The only way that scheme works for Affirm is
| if Peloton pays a kickback to Affirm for handling the
| financing.
|
| I just read through their latest 10Q and it confirmed what I
| assumed:
|
| "From merchants, we earn a fee when we help them convert a sale
| and facilitate a transaction. While merchant fees depend on the
| individual arrangement between us and each merchant and vary
| based on the terms of the product offering, we generally earn
| larger merchant fees on 0% APR financing products. For the
| three months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020, 0% APR
| financing represented 43% and 46%, respectively, of total GMV
| facilitated through our platform."
|
| They also buy and service some of the loans they make.
|
| https://investors.affirm.com/static-files/c2bbca98-f909-4961...
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Ideally you could just wait until you saved money to buy your
| smart bike.
|
| The issue here is at least with a credit card I'm motivated
| to pay off the debt ASAP, and shop on total price vs what the
| payments are.
|
| Super smart bike for 99$ a month sounds better than Smart
| bike for 2500$.
|
| I recall as a teenager I went to a Rent a Center and they
| pitched a 50$ a week laptop. For like 24 weeks. Absolutely
| idiotic, I saved 400$ and brought one cash.
|
| This type of thing preys upon the fiscally illiterate. You
| should NEVER use this junk. Keep one or two credit cards and
| pay them off ASAP.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Thinking of where possibly MS would get revenue streams from
| Windows it seems pretty clear they have to do something.
| Realistically how home users buy Windows for full retail price?
| timwaagh wrote:
| I'm guessing EU aren't going to like this. Microsoft might not be
| the primary browser vendor anymore but this still is similar to
| stuff they've already been sued for. Also I figure that such a
| focus on retail shopping might annoy their enterprise customers.
| Like what are their employees going to do all day. If you ask
| Microsoft it's spending their ssalary (and getting into debt),not
| doing their job.
| TedShiller wrote:
| People still use Windows? I thought that was a 90s thing
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Apparently their next version will be ready for desktop use,
| they just need to add some super basic features (pin-to-top?)
| to their WM and they're there. Next year could finally be the
| year they're ready for Windows to be good on desktops!
| anakaine wrote:
| I'm unsure if you're being facetious or not, but >85% of the
| market is on Windows.
|
| https://hostingtribunal.com/blog/operating-systems-market-sh...
| anonnyj wrote:
| Buy Now Pay Later is yet another pink tax
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