They’re doomed to lose this because of their bloat. If you think of Microsoft in a steam format (not publicly traded) they could’ve ran a tight operation with focus on a solid product to maintain their monopoly indefinitely. Instead they’re overextending into AI and to cover the cost of compute they’ll need to push for more monetization. Higher subscription costs, forced AI integration and more aggressive data collection are already here.
All of this is pushing customers towards Linux. And I’m talking big customers here. Entire countries are switching currently. This is an insane amount of effort btw. Teaching a million Margarets from HR how to use Libre Office instead of MS Word after decades of habit is not easy so they really had to shit the bed for this to happen but shit the bed they did.
Their power is fragile though. The EU has sanctioned big tech in the past and will do so again. Sure they could screw us over hard but that’d hurt their profits significantly more than complying and as slaves to their shareholders they will not do that.
We shall not bow to tech twinks.