Allison, however, has clearly given this issue a lot more thought than those commenters, and today he posted another piece, dismantling every single one of their objections, in detail. It's a fantastic read, and not only because he used "Tu Quoque" in a sentence.
This is one of my favourite parts:
“But Apple and Google do it too”
This is what is known in logic as a “Tu Quoque” fallacy or as all people who deal with small children know the “How come he can do it but I can’t” argument. It’s not really an argument so much as it is pointing or that someone else does the same thing, ergo they should be allowed to do the same thing. In most cases, it is a logical fallacy because it a) is an attempt at deflection from the topic at hand and a red herring, and b) the comparison is never really appropriate.
Take this example where Owen Williams compares the uproar over Windows 10’s advertising and notes that Apple’s Mac OS pops up a notification whenever default browsers are changed. I’m sure some people are complaining about it, but it is disingenuous to compare to this to Windows because Microsoft does exactly the same thing in Windows 10 when you deviate from the Microsoft recommended defaults and that is not what people are complaining about.And there's this point:
“But Windows 10 is free, how do you expect Microsoft to recoup their investment”
This is a terrible argument on several fronts.
Firstly and briefly, unless you’re a Microsoft shareholder or employee, you have no business worrying about Microsoft’s bottom line. Your contribution to Windows revenue begins and ends at the online or in-store checkout where you presumably paid for it with hard-earned money.
Secondly, Windows 10 is not free. It comes pre-installed with PCs in which case it is purchased by OEMs and then the pricing is bundled in with that of your PC, or it can be purchased by users from Microsoft who sells it at a base price of £109.99. One way or another, you’re paying for Windows.But this may be the most important section:
Finally and more importantly, there’s is an issue of trust and trust being violated there.
Microsoft promised explicitly that Windows 10 would be free, They made great pains to explain that the Windows 10 upgrade was not free with an asterisk or with hidden terms and conditions but genuinely free. While some online pundits and commenters argued that Microsoft giving out Windows 10 for free meant that Windows 10 was being monetized and that Microsoft would slowly take control from the user, they were dismissed as crackpots and spreaders of FUD.
Playing devil’s advocate for a moment here and assuming that this is what Microsoft is actually doing, this implies that Microsoft deliberately lied to their customers when they marketed Windows 10 as free with no strings attached. Much like with the Windows Phone 8.1 upgrade “promise”, OneDrive kerfuffle a while ago, this erodes trust in Microsoft’s word. It implies that Microsoft can promise something explicitly, and then change it once you’re sufficiently locked-in.Well said. Very well said.
And, finally, there's this point:
“But you can turn it off”
You could turn Cortana off before too. Simply speaking, would you turn it on if it was off by default? If no, then who does it benefit.What can I say? I agree completely. In fact, many of these are essentially the same arguments that I've been making for months, if less eloquently (or more pungently). Seriously, the whole thing is great, and if you've been following this issue at all then you should absolutely go read the entirety of it.
(Yes, I've linked to the article five different times in one blog post. What can I say? I'm hoping someone from Microsoft happens on this, and clicks a link.)