SaaS - "software as a service", aka "subscription model".

This is why people need to ditch Windows, because even though the new fancy Nordic edition will remove telemetry (honestly if you have to run Windows, run that), it'll still most likely be subscription based.

The way I see it, Windows will become Co-Pilot OS. Eventually features will be taken out of Windows and replaced with prompts. At some point you can only do basic, basic stuff without Co-Pilot, and Co-Pilot will cost you a monthly subscription.

This will hopefully piss off the OEM's, because they'll see that they're paying Microsoft to give them clients. Hopefully that will mean they pivot toward Linux, but most likely they'll just hash out a deal with Microsoft and also push Co-Pilot like a mf.

This is a reminder that most laptops and systems today run perfectly with Linux. You don't need windows anymore, and the longer you stay reliant upon Microsoft, the deeper into that SaaS rabbit hole you go, eventually ending up as a captured audiences once more.

Again:

LINUX is super fucking easy nowadays, you have no more excuses.

Agreed with everything you say, and I don’t have any solutions you haven’t said. I would like to add, buy your nephews, cousins, kids, students, etc physical games. Buy them the games they want, too, not just the ones that you think they should have. Get them used to going to the store to look at games and game boxes. Take them to the retro game store and let them pick something out. Encourage gaming to be more than passive consumption, and try to instill more positive associations with ownership. Avoid lecturing, or trying to create negative associations with digital or subscription products, and just help them share in your passion, it’ll take you a long way.

I saw a YouTube short of a player trying to capture one of those rare flying creatures from Avatar in Ubisoft's new game just like in the first movie. He reveals how you can't interact with the animal as of now, and makes a joke about it referencing the plot of the first movie.

From the comments on that video I learned two things:

1. I was so late to realize just how much of Trekkie-like cultists the fans of this franchise are.
2. The first comment was something along the lines of "I hope in their next DLC they implement it just like in the film". I know there are free DLC, but I believe in popular knowledge DLC refers to paid updated content, right? So these people are already conditioned to believe that fixes must come in a third-to-half the full game price package!