Microsoft is basically discontinuing Windows. What will happen, then?
So the end of life for Windows 10 looms ahead of us, which is a problem because Windows 11 has two fundamental problems, as it currently stands:
First, it just won't run on the majority of hardware that currently runs Windows 10. This isn't just, like, ancient hardware; I have a desktop gaming PC that is perfectly fine to play current-gen AAA games on; it's what I played Cyberpunk 2077 on and that was totally okay. But somehow it doesn't meet Win11 requirements because of the CPU; it has a Ryzen 5 1600X in it, a CPU from 2017 that is apparently still actively being manufactured.
Moore's law has been dead for a while, so the long plateauing of, particularly, CPU power has meant that some of this hardware has a looong shelf life. I still haven't run into a game I want to play on PC that is cpu-bound on my machine and which would make me want to upgrade.
Second, win11 is unsecurable, because they implemented a feature (recall) that is just constantly screen recording everything you do on the computer, creating a sort of one-stop-shop for compromising literally anything. It functionally means that you can't be sure your computer hasn't, say, saved a password in plaintext (effectively) just because you had the 'show password' switch flipped once.
Those two things make win11 untenable for probably the majority of its users. Hardware compatibility will stop a ton of people on older or lower end personal machines. Individuals, small businesses, the public school in your town that hasn't had money for new computers in five or ten years. Recall being a major security flaw will, I fucking hope, give pause to a ton of institutional users. Is a computer with Win11 even legal to use in some restrictive settings like government offices, militaries, or hospitals?
But, the deadline to upgrade or lose security patch support from MS is looming; we have a little less than a year left, as of this writing. MS is offering "extended support" as a service, but it's not been announced how much this will cost for individuals, and the price for businesses seems prohibitive; the announced price is $61 for the first year, and then doubling each subsequent year. It seems very clear that MS's goal is to force its users, by hook or by crook, off win10 and onto win11.
Most users, or a very substantial minority of users, cannot upgrade as things stand. So... what is going to happen, exactly?
Scenario 1: we all just shrug our shoulders about it
Windows 10's EOL deadline comes and goes and nobody pays it much mind. Some people upgrade. Windows 11 overall flops commercially due to its unique combination of being bad but also unsupported on large swathes of its alleged user base.
Some small amount of people, mostly computer touchers, migrate away from win10. But most users just carry on as if nothing is happening.
Large numbers of unsupported Win10 installs persist. Several major cyberattacks happen, affecting all kinds of essential services and thousands of individuals, as known exploits become resolutely unpatched by MS. Like all software, win10 gradually rots into something that's untenable for production use; but this rot happens in an abnormally damaging and ungraceful way. MS tries to address this by patching win10 with ever-more aggressive upgrade nags. Users ignore these, or they disable them with third-party tools.
Large numbers of win10 users upgrade, probably more than would upgrade otherwise. This does not make win11 commercially successful; it flops like Windows Vista before it. Many of those installs require hardware upgrades that are unnecessary, creating many tons of additional ewaste. Many of those installs happen by blissfully disregarding the security issues, causing Recall to be in use in many machines where it really shouldn't be in use.
Win11 does not have vulnerabilities that are as severe as win10, because it is being actively patched. Unfortunately, when win11 machines do get owned, they disgorge everything. Numerous major leaks of sensitive information happen. We all learn to ask people if they have a win11 machine before we send them nudes.
Scenario 2: Microsoft caves (on hardware support)
MS hurriedly makes it so Win11 doesn't require a newer CPU or TPM 2.0, 'solving' the issue for most users. Large numbers of users upgrade to win10. The upgrade nags and 'free' upgrade make it one of the most successful Windows launches ever, if not the most successful. Stock price surges.
Every time a win11 machine gets owned, it disgorges everything. Numerous people have their lives ruined by this. Leaks caused by Recall eventually rack up billions of dollars in damages and a pretty significant body count. We shrug this off like we shrug every other hailstone in the constant torrent of increasingly brutal indignities that is existing in the 21st century. We all learn to ask people if they have a win11 machine before we send them nudes.
Scenario 3: Microsoft kinda caves (on Recall)
MS hurriedly implements a proper "turn Recall off" switch on win11, and pinky promises not to silently turn it back on in an update. Computer touchers and sysadmins know to flip this switch on every single machine for all eternity, mitigating the damage Recall does to institutional users and to computer touchers.
Large numbers of normal people still have their lives ruined by Recall. We all learn to ask people if they have a win11 machine before we send them nudes.
Scenario 4: Aliens invade earth
An advanced extrasolar civilization lands on Earth either hoping to strip it of its resources, or to enact paternalistic control over human institutions in order to implement its own value system without regard for human self-determination. In light of this, the issues with win11 seem kind of unimportant, but they still matter. We all learn to ask people if they have a win11 machine before we send them secret human resistance intelligence.
Scenario 5: Some adult in the room steps in
Some regulatory body in the US or the EU notices the scale of the turd that Microsoft is about to throw at the proverbial fan and steps in to stop them. Maybe they put a gun to their head and make them extend free security update support to win10. Maybe they decide that the Recall feature is incompatible with their reading of the GDPR.
Win11 comes out with Recall either greatly diminished or nixed entirely. It still doesn't run on your machine. Most people opt out of upgrading. Satya Nadella gets a gigantic bonus just for continuing to metabolize oxygen.
Scenario 6: People actually migrate away from Windows
Ha ha, as if.
Scenario 7: Undermutants from the Hollow Earth invade and take over the surface
This is just scenario 4 but upside-down.
Scenario 8: Seized by a sudden commitment to justice and humanity's future, a mob of Seattle-area locals breaks into Microsoft headquarters and drags Satya Nadella to an impromptu people's trial on the streets of Redmond which ends with his very richly deserved hanging
This one is self-explanatory, I think.