In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

> Yet now the company that Gates and Allen founded is selling operating systems like Gillette sells razor blades. New releases of operating systems are launched as if they were Hollywood blockbusters, with celebrity endorsements, talk show appearances, and world tours.

I was a kid at the time, but did many people actually buy windows? I know about the ad-thing where the cast of Friends or whatever bought windows 95, but as I recall even back then the OS just came with the device. The only exception was OSX, which was a “Big Deal,” even non-technical people downloaded it.

Anyway, it is funny to see this in retrospect. Nowadays, operating systems have become so commoditized that you can’t even make a business selling them.

I love Linux but his description is quite optimistic.

> I was a kid at the time, but did many people actually buy windows?

Yep! Windows did indeed come with machines, but the upgrades were always a big seller. I remember when Windows 3.1 hit the shelves and seemed to be everywhere. Same with Windows 95 but that one was a tougher upgrade because of the increased system requirements.

Yes - people bought it to upgrade, as the step up from dos to 3.1 to win95 was huge.

Absolutely -- yes Windows came with your PC, but you'd buy the new version as a (cheaper) upgrade if you didn't want to wait until the next PC you bought.

Today new OS versions aren't such a big deal, but when Windows 95 came out, and then XP, they were huge, with total interface redesigns.

On the other hand, I don't think people went out of their way as much to buy smaller upgrades like Windows 98.

I think the fact that OS updates are free now kinda killed a lot of the marketing/promotion since most consumers will only update if their computer is old.

I actually bought Windows 95 shrink-wrapped in store, because I was so excited about the new UI, for my previously DOS-only 486DX. Also OS/2 a bit later.

> I was a kid at the time, but did many people actually buy windows?

Definitely. A new boxed OS version would often be the only updates anyone ever applied to their system. Even if you had Internet access, dial-up speeds and limited disk space meant downloading OS updates was often impractical. Even relatively small updates took forever to download.

There was also the relative costs of a computer. A $2,000 computer in 1995 would be about $4,000 in today dollars. Buying an OS update would be a relatively inexpensive way to upgrade the capabilities of your expensive computer without completely replacing it. Going from some Windows 3.1 release to Windows 95 would have been a nice upgrade in system stability for many people. Certainly not everyone but for many.

It feels like while the marketing of launches may still be like that, it is purely to usher along adoption of the target future state which seems to be doing away with versions and having you simply locked in to forever paying an ever-increasing subscription fee to continue to use your computer in addition to data collection which can be separately monetized.

This is markedly different from how it was in the past when they needed people to get up, go to a store, and buy the disc containing the new version of the OS.