Windows needs to stop showing tabloid news

I don't want anything, any type of news being pushed by my OS. It simply isn't it's job. Maybe, as an option or optional add-on, but not the way MS does it.

I use 10 now, as locked down and 'fixed' as I was able to make it (custom ISO via NTLite with a bunch of crap removed and some fixes steamrolled in), but really I look forward to ditching it altogether - which is a shame. For all the MS hate in the OSS community, I always thought Windows did a lot of stuff well (when it was good at least).

The telemetry, changing things for the sake of changing things and forced crap constantly being added is enough. I'm so in love with awesomewm at this point, and the fact that I can customize and program every part of my UI, allowing me to have something absolutely perfect and tailor made.

>I don't want anything, any type of news being pushed by my OS. It simply isn't it's job.

Yes, it is. The job of a proprietary OS is whatever that company says it is. If it's shoveling annoying ads to users, that's its job, and having annoying ads is a very sensible thing in a proprietary OS since the company is driven by profit, and they can make more profit by including lots of annoying ads. If you don't like the product your vendor has sold you, then you should choose a different vendor. A Free OS that doesn't come from a company with a profit motive won't have this same problem.

The whole "just go elsewhere" idea doesn't really work in a total monopoly like Microsoft has on desktop OSes for some use cases.

There is not, and has never been an alternative to windows for all use cases. Most notably: a gaming rig (One of few remaining use cases for stationary home PCs these days, so perhaps the most relevant for the idea of the Microsoft monopoly on the desktop). If you want to reply that Linux is a perfectly usable OS for a gaming rig these days then please reconsider. It's just not.

I actually don't understand how Microsoft reasons around these things. There is zero way that these news links actually "pay for themselves" in income vs customer alienation. There must be something else to it.

It IS a perfectly usable OS for a gaming rig. Try a Steam Deck if you haven't. Most games work, granted if you love some multiplayer game with kernel level anti-cheat it won't work. But at this point it feels like 90-95% compatible. I've run into I think one game I've tried out of probably 50-100 that I couldn't get to work just by launching or either bumping the Proton/Wine version.