A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back ( www.windowscentral.com )

It's a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a new AI tool designed to remember everything you do on Windows. The feature that we never asked and never wanted it.

Microsoft, has done a lot to degrade the Windows user experience over the last few years. Everything from obtrusive advertisements to full-screen popups, ignoring app defaults, forcing a Microsoft Account, and more have eroded the trust relationship between Windows users and Microsoft.

It's no surprise that users are already assuming that Microsoft will eventually end up collecting that data and using it to shape advertisements for you. That really would be a huge invasion of privacy, and people fully expect Microsoft to do it, and it's those bad Windows practices that have led people to this conclusion.

Dra ,

Buy a mac or support steamOS adoption or just get a linux distro. This will drive the improvement of nontechnical consumer GNU/Linux

trslim ,

I cant believe im actually supporting the sentence "buy a mac" but its far far better than what ever microsoft is doing, and if you arent computer literate enough to install linux, its a decent alternative to windows.

bitwaba ,

Apple is going to start cramming their AI the throat of all users in the next year or two as well.

Just... No.

Suavevillain ,
@Suavevillain@lemmy.world avatar

Microsoft has done nothing to earn any good will or trust. Everything seems to spite the user or just harvesting maximum user data.

Sibbo ,
@Sibbo@sopuli.xyz avatar

Do people outside of tech care?

F4U57 ,

They really should

Meowie_Gamer ,
@Meowie_Gamer@lemmy.world avatar

No, unfortunately

secretlyaddictedtolinux ,

Most male computer uses watch porn and would not want an AI to log that. Many women find porn sickening and don't understand it and will never understand male urges that result in watching it. The fact that this got into a finished product tells you a lot about Microsoft's corporate culture.

No one working there really cares about the company enough to bring up uncomfortable issues, they are all there just to get their paycheck and actual outcomes be damned. The culture their must be toxic for this product to have been put into a product enabled by default.

If this was a top-down decision and there was no input by others into it, it leads to questions over whether this feature was forced to be included by the government, which can easily require corporations to do anything and then issue gag orders and whether it was some sort of test to see how much intrusive spying bullshit that regular consumers will tolerate now. If this was a feature that was forced into the product, the plan may have been to turn it off by default after negative feedback, but then just keep it in the program for when governments want to turn it on. Governments may have realized it in any capacity such a terrible feature would result in outrage and may have thought this was the path of least resistance, like saying "Would you like to eat a bowl of shit? No, okay, we'll just give you these brussel sprouts"

JasSmith ,

Most male computer uses watch porn and would not want an AI to log that. Many women find porn sickening and don’t understand it and will never understand male urges that result in watching it. The fact that this got into a finished product tells you a lot about Microsoft’s corporate culture.

Excellent point. We saw exactly the same phenomenon play out with Google and Gemini. The tool created racially diverse Nazis. Even a few minutes with the tool revealed major issues. There must have been hundreds of people who witnessed the slow moving train crash in realtime, but were either unwilling or unable to speak out. I think these companies have clearly cultivated a hierarchical culture of fear and intimidation. I recently left a job in which my manager was ex-Google. The stories she would tell were appalling. Her command-and-control style was, frankly, disgusting. She permitted zero critical feedback or discussion. It was her way or "fuck off." I found that very instructive as to how these companies have morphed into shells of their formers selves. I'm not bullish on the future of these companies. They're coasting very well on the fumes of their historical successes, and I think their demise is all but assured.

secretlyaddictedtolinux ,

lol, you're the only one who liked my post apparently. everyone else hates it!

Rekorse ,

I dont hate your original post, its just somewhat confusing and disjointed.

Could you expand on your first paragraph? I feel like I'm missing context there especially to connect the first and second sentence.

Also, what is your overall point?

secretlyaddictedtolinux ,

The point of the first two sentences is that because there is a large gender divide on whether porn is acceptable, a lot of times men and women don't discuss porn because the subject will lead to conflict. This isn't true of all members of both genders. Since corporations often have a mix of genders, bringing up the topic of porn and how a feature could alienate porn viewers would be an uncomfortable topic that would be easier to avoid because men and women find the topic uncomfortable often for different reasons. In Microsoft's case, it seems like no one at Microsoft brought up how male porn watchers might not like AI watching their pornhub history and recording it to a file, despite it seeming like it would be an obvious concern to any male at Microsoft who watches porn, and likely many do. These means their corporate culture is so selfish on their own career protection and focused on not offending others that they let a really bad feature that many hate go to market instead of talking openly how this would be a disaster out of fear that it could cause workplace conflict.

So instead of saving millions of dollars in costs and damage to the brand, everyone at Microsoft aware of this problem just said nothing. That's a terrible corporate culture. If a product isn't going to work, even uncomfortable discussions should be had if it saves millions.

My point overall was that it's shocking this made it into the product. It's such a bad idea for a feature on multiple levels, that it seems like employees did not openly talk about this.

My other point was that if Microsoft employees didn't drop the ball, then this feature may have been forced into the project by a government order of some kind, which can and does happen in closed source software. Although hidden backdoors are often secret, the government could equally compel a large unlocked window at the front be added as well.

secretlyaddictedtolinux ,

There needs to be a way to have an inclusive corporate culture that celebrates cultures and backgrounds but also allows brutal honesty about products without people being afraid of accidentally offending others or being too indifferent to the corporation's success to speak up.

A lot of it probably relates to how often people are fired and how short tenures are with companies. If you have a short tenure with a company or are expecting to, does it matter if Company A does well instead of Company B or Company C? It probably doesn't, and with social media capturing one wrong offensive faux paus for eternity (by which I mean until the planet becomes uninhabitable 300 years from now), workers have every incentive to let disasters like this go to market.

I am judging Microsoft employees but likely would have said nothing if I were there too. With all the layoffs in tech, why risk it to say something controversial? Even my initial post on this got down-voted into the depths of an abyss just for mentioning that men and women see pornography in different ways sometimes, which should hardly be controversial. I don't know whether the votes were from men or women, but actually I imagine more women than men down-voted it, and even this guess will probably lead to additional down-votes.

I dislike people like Elon Musk for his cruelty towards transgender people (despite his admirable intelligence), and I dislike Donald Trump for his cruelty towards those who are different in any way, but I also feel like people should be able to have discussions about actual uncomfortable subjects without it being automatically offensive. The fact I was so heavily down-voted immediately tends to illustrate my point.

bluewing ,

Pfffttt, Microsoft has been there, done this, and got a whole closet full of tee shirts for stuff like this many times over the years. In the end the users don't care and can't stop it. And they are, by in large, too lazy to change to something else to completely avoid it.

It hasn't ever affected the bottom line enough to matter to them. They will just pull this bug feature and wait for a better day. Or perhaps they will figure out a way to introduce it piecemeal to disguise it better.

egeres ,
@egeres@lemmy.world avatar

I do think that the concept of recall is very interesting, I want to explore a FOSS version where you have complete ownership of your data in a secure manner

JasSmith ,

Yeah the concept is pretty damn cool. It's just horrifying to have a company own and control that data. I suspect this is like Xbox One launch disaster in 2013, in which Microsoft initially required all consoles to have an always-online connection. People rebelled, but today and certainly on our current trajectory, it now looks like Microsoft was just a little ahead of the curve. I think people will eventually become a lot more comfortable with companies owning their data because the benefits will be so enormous. I'm not happy about that future, but I think I understand it.

Hackworth ,

It seems to me that we've reached a crossroads. I've been very aware of the data mining, garden walls, data trading, privacy violations, security issues, ownership issues, etc. - for roughly 30 years. I regularly make the choice to be exploited for the benefits I extract, largely because the data they've gotten from me thus far I don't highly value. But the necessity to develop strategies to keep the devil's bargain beneficial has reached a fevered pitch. I want to train my own AI and public AIs. I want to explore the vast higher dimensional semantic spaces of generative models without API charges. APIs are vanishing as we speak, anyway, companies fearful of their data being extracted without compensation. Can't really sit on the Open/Closed fence anymore.

PsyDoctah9Jah ,
@PsyDoctah9Jah@lemmy.world avatar

Both Apple and Microsoft are two sides of the same coin....

One went left, the other went right, both going to the same location....

The only thing to consider is how you prefer to travel and how quickly you want to arrive....

freewheel ,

I built a kit car, painted a penguin on the side, and forgot to include the telemetry module. Oops.

I think I'll travel somewhere else.

laurelraven ,

Microsoft and Apple are not the only choices

beefbot ,

Linux!: Had set It up years ago when it was a slog. Came back recently after Windows did this— and it was so much easier.

Work? Yes. The comfort of knowing I’ve put off for one more day the tech ubergods carving my life open? Also yes.

ProgrammingSocks ,

Stallman just keeps being right*

*About software freedom

ninekeysdown ,
@ninekeysdown@lemmy.world avatar

lol, yeah that’s an important asterisk for sure!

kittenzrulz123 ,

Microsoft: oh no we might loose 0.0000001% of users, it doesn't matter since we can shove our software down people throats

afraid_of_zombies ,

Just think they might go from owning 98% of the market to 97% of the market. I am sure this is a nightmare for them.

widw ,

You just wait and see. I'll bet it goes all the way down to 96 and then they'll really be sorry.

Crashumbc ,

Year of the Linux destktop!

mojofrododojo ,

MS's frequent missteps - win11, total recall, ai inescapable etc., - may just finally catch up with them. While they continue to devour game studios and shut them down for irrational reasons, who knows?

Stop being so negative and open your mind. Hell, MS did, you can use bash on the command line now. Times do change.

Tryptaminev ,

Gradual shifts can snowball into huge shifts. a few years ago Linux gaming only existed for the dedicated crowd, that somehow managed to make it work. Now for many it is no different from their Windows experience for most games, sometimes even better.

Think of it like bubbles pressing against each other. It matters not only how much pressure your own bubble has, but also how much pressure the other bubbles have in finding the equilibrium. The Windows bubble isn't only weakening itself, the Linux bubble is getting stronger and stronger

c0ber ,

i assume you mean that sarcastically but that is a nightmare for them and every bit of lost marketshare makes it easier to lose more

ulkesh ,
@ulkesh@lemmy.world avatar

I’m telling everyone I know it’s time to move to Linux, or worst case Mac.

FiniteBanjo ,

Mac is not better in any circumstance. Except maybe power efficiency but I doubt that's going to last for long.

TheFeatureCreature ,
@TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world avatar

MacOS is a highly mature, stable, and user-friendly OS that, at least for now, Apple does not meddle with in the same ways that MS has been doing with Windows. It has its problems, yes, but to say "any circumstance" is extreme. I don't like or agree with everything that Apple has done to MacOS but at least Apple isn't actively trashing it into the ground with forced bloat, ads, malware, etc like MS is doing.

kayazere ,

They are definitely are starting to trash it with ads for their own services, user hostile behavior/dark patterns (try turning off Bluetooth and applying a software update, it will be magically back on), and have ruined the UI slowly turning it in to iOS.

ulkesh ,
@ulkesh@lemmy.world avatar

I have used a Mac since 2007 (almost exclusively for work) and many of Apple's services during that time. I have not experienced any ads as you describe. As for Bluetooth magically turning back on after a software update, of course I do not know for certain, but that screams incompetence more than it screams intent. Apple most definitely has problems (where they build their hardware, policies they tried to enact and then backtracked, etc). And I'm not advocating for them like I am for Linux and other open source solutions. But if a normal user doesn't want to deal with some of the lingering complexities that Linux still has (which is a dwindling number), then a Mac is a relatively viable alternative and it does not come anywhere near as close to the privacy nightmare that Microsoft has become.

I am not tribal at all with respect to any of these entities. I have used all three OSes for the better part of 25 years. I have watched the ebbs and flows of Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Canonical, Red Hat, and various FOSS solutions such as Linux, for a very long time. And I have had a front row seat seeing Apple's mistakes, Microsoft's mistakes, Canonical's mistakes, and so forth. And I feel I can judge with some semblance of realism and objectivity -- Microsoft has failed so hard with Recall and they are so out of touch with what users want, they deserve every bit of ire they are getting, and they deserve to have their market share diminish because of it. Aside from perhaps Google, and now Adobe, I haven't seen a technology company be so blatantly and willfully aggressive (and one could say, stupid) when it comes to these actions and topics.

kayazere ,

The Bluetooth issue also happens on iOS, so I think it is an explicit choice, as Apple wants as many devices contributing to their Find My Network. It’s also the reason they changed control center on iOS to no longer turn off Wifi and Bluetooth, but to disconnect the current connections.

afraid_of_zombies ,

I'm telling everyone I know

Vegan, European, CrossFit, Linux, born again

aBundleOfFerrets ,

Seeing “European” is all you need to know this is rage bait

secretlyaddictedtolinux ,

I have down-voted this because in a worst case scenario, they should move to a less appealing version of Linux, like Arch

(waiting for my down-votes)

nutsack ,

it isn't a nightmare for them. they will be fine. they normalize everything they do

Teknikal ,
@Teknikal@lemm.ee avatar

All I want from an Os is to launch my programs of choice and not suck up my battery running unnecessary junk I couldn't care less about.

MIDItheKID ,

The worst part is that Windows can do that, but Microsoft insists on enshittifying it. Like Windows 11 isn't that terrible if it wasn't for all of the data collection and advertisements and other shit.

I miss the Windows 7 days where you could download a stripped down ISO that was just the OS. It launched your programs of choice and didn't suck up your battery running unnecessary junk.

nossaquesapao ,

Last week, I went to a friend's house and asked to use her computer, which is still a core 2 duo with 2gb of ram and an hdd, running win7. I was a bit surprised to see her family having it as their only computer, but more surprised to see how fast it was. I expected to have the most laggish experience of my life, but it was.. smooth. I've used machines with much modern low end cpus, more ram and ssds that performed much worse than that on win10. The enshittification is real.

MIDItheKID ,

Yup. I can say for sure that SSDs were certainly a game changer, but now we have systems with like 10x the processing power that operate at the same speeds because the power has been spent on poorly optimized code and bloatware.

Sigh... I'm going to have to start fucking around with Linux, aren't I?

bluewing ,

Yeah, the signs are starting to manifest. You will embrace the penguin at some point to get what you desire.

AWittyUsername ,

Apple ensures its operating systems are clean, polished, and without bloat.

Except for all the uninstallable Apple bloat such as Apple Music, Apple TV, etc. And the numerous bugs and issues, such as still not being able to have the touch pad and mouse scroll wheel have different settings.

echodot ,

I remember when everyone was complaining about how terrible Safari is. The lead developer started having a go and ranting on Twitter, saying that raising bug reports is not constructive feedback.

That was a mess.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Safari is still a pain for frontend developers to deal with. At least IE6 was a static target and we were well aware of all the bugs. Some of the bugs and workarounds even had names, like the "peekaboo bug" and the Holly Hack".

Safari is a moving target that has so many bugs and issues that none of the other major browsers have.

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, the main takeaway here is "Apple Bad"

weststadtgesicht ,

The main takeaway of this article about Microsoft's horrible decisions is "Apple bad"? OS flame wars really haven't gotten less ridiculous in the past decades...

moon ,

No it's that Linux is good

billwashere ,

Apple is not blameless but they are a shit-ton better than Microsoft. I have to have M$ for a few work apps but I’m primarily MacOS for desktop and Linux for everything server-side. I avoid M$ as much as possible.

AWittyUsername ,

I agree. But everyone acts like Apple's shit doesn't stink.

ZILtoid1991 ,

Don't forget the fact they're locked onto luxury hardware, and you can't build your own flavor for it. Even worse is, notebook manufacturers copied them so much there's less variations among them. I was looking for some "subnotebook" as a potential portable PC, but I had like a few options (many of which would have included AliExpress junk), but there's an endless supply of same-looking 14-16" ones, that are thin ("real" portability according to techbros), lightweight, "desktop replacements", and run at a constant 95°C.

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