this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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Microsoft is so incredibly fucked when the AI bubble starts to burst. They've abandoned so many of their other projects and customers to go all-in on it.
I dunno. I feel like they are like the cable company now. They will jus sit there twiddling their nipples while we are all fucked.
I need the cable company (or similar) due to the fact that infrastructure is hard to deploy, and we need Internet to participate in society.
Nobody needs Microsoft cause every single one of their products has an alternative that's at least as good.
They survive by courting enterprises, but many of them can also switch away if they want.
How long until they successfully lobby the US government to make FOSS illegal somehow
On a personal basis that works, but they are so corporately entrenched that their products getting shitier matters quite little.
Nothing like FOSS when it comes to cost cutting.
Seriously this, it would take something like the PCI or SOX declaring Windows outside of compliance for Microsoft to die from bad business decisions in the US. Although German gov switching to Linux starts treading a path through
Oh really, how bummed would they be?
They will be fine. They are second most valuable company in the world. They have money to throw around and their source of income still seem inexhaustible. A few new Linux users won't even make a dent.
Sorry to be so blunt, but it's the truth no matter what we are wishing for.
If this was true (not that they are the 2nd most valuable company, that much is clear), why would they bend over and support W10 for another year in the EU while fucking up everyone else? There are ways for companies that seem to be immortal to self-destroy. Intel for example. Did any of us thought that they could burst 10 years ago? And look at them now, crawling asking for help.
All you need is a seriously bad decision, then doubling down on it, and just watch it spiral down until they crash.
The seemingly endless access to money only makes the process take longer, it's not a shield from catastrophic failure.
It's very much true. W10 was cause of pressure from companies and countries, not because of the odd Joe contemplating their os.
Any company may fall, but they can also fail from inaction. Ms has the option to get data no one else can. They can't afford not to.
Yeah, that certainly plays a role. What really blows my mind is that governments and companies KNOW this about Microsoft, yet they choose to stay in their infrastructure. This world just keeps getting weirder every day.
Yes and it's not new. There have been failed attempts to get out of Microsoft by governments and companies around the world for more than a decade. Its hard. The cost is huge, the benefit vague and distant.
The only reason why is gaining ground now it's because US got really crazy. Not because of the cost of Windows licences. Not even because of invasive AI.
I keep parroting this, but in the next couple of years, I think there will be a couple of giants that fall. I work in ServiceNow and they, like many others, have gone all in on AI. Their problem is that they were slower than some, their solution is half baked at best, and it's prohibitively expensive. Nobody is paying 10s of thousands+ extra for the licensing to be able to run agents, and less are paying the extra licensing required for the users to be able to use that agent.
I've now been pulled into copilot studio, and yet again it's another product rushed to market that isn't ready for the big stage. Dog shit documentation and training material, and terrible environment design.
All of these big players have invested so much money in adding AI, nobody wants it, and now they're all hemoragging money.
Precisely my thoughts. Companies that are all in on this, except for 2 or 3 of the ones that actually are making headway on AI (as opposed to just mirroring Sam Altman's ponzy scheme like Microsoft is doing), will eventually crash and burn.
Look at Apple, they've been left behind in the AI race, but they have other good stuff thatsome of their fans will support (I'm using the word "good" very lightly here), and with their market value and endless cash flow, they are way more likely to still be here 10 years from now.
None of us can see the future, but we can look at the signs. MS will never be a point of reference for AI, as that task belongs to OpenAI and Google exclusively for now (and Meta to some extent).
Sounds like a lot of company these days.
Hate to tell you, but we're all incredibly fucked. Least of all Microsoft. They know what they're doing. They most certainly already have a plan for recovery, as they know it's coming just as well as everyone else.
It won't make a difference.
What other projects they abandoned do you see as so critical that it would break Microsoft?
Windows Live Writer, obviously.
I think that Microsoft will continue in some form regardless of what happens with this bubble because they have huge amounts of physical assets and cash on hand.
That said, their market position in any given sector they're in might not be as invincible as it seems. There are corporations that were titans of their industries, including technology, that either don't exist or are ghosts of their former selves all in far less than a lifetime.
Kodak, Xerox, Bell Labs, IBM, and Yahoo all looked like unstoppable juggernauts when I was a kid, and my own kids haven't even heard of some of them.
Copilot, Github, LinkedIn, ChatGPT are the ones that come to mind. All of them have started to degrade in quality in one way or another, and with the exception of LinkedIn, they all have competitors that could potentially, over the long haul, could dismantle Microsoft. They're also running out of places to extend and extinguish.
It probably won't happen in one or two lifetimes, but enough cracks in a dam accumulate and eventually the whole thing breaks.