Word documents will be saved to the cloud automatically on Windows going forward

More than anything, Microsoft is incompetent at messaging and communications.

This is a feature that has been among the most loved aspects of its main competitor for more than a decade.

Somehow, Microsoft managed to make the same feature sound and feel and be creepy.

It's even simpler.

People who wanted that kind of treatment and walled garden already moved to apple's ecosystem, and people who do not want this stayed with windows.

Now more and more of my non-technical friends are moving towards linux because microsoft is pushing them away.

I've no idea what you mean by "walled garden" w/r/t MacOS, but I understand it's an article of faith on HN.

Again, for the Nth time, you can run any software you like on a Mac. You can do anything you want. App store? Of course. Direct vendor download? You bet. Build from source? No problem.

Further, this line is out of place here because Microsoft is FAR more invasive about pushing cloud-first storage than Apple has ever been. No app on my Mac default to saving to iCloud. NONE.

You can do whatever you want inside the garden, but moving away from it is becoming increasingly harder and harder - hence walled garden.

you can't bring your software with you, you can't bring your licenses with you, and all services are available only inside it.