Because the writing has been on the wall that people are no longer going to pay for operating systems. That means that MS has to replace all that Windows revenue with services revenue. Apple has already done this in that their services revenue now account for $100B annually (https://www.statista.com/chart/14629/apple-services-revenue/) and MS doesn't have a hardware business to rely on as Apple does.
I'm sure MS sees a future where Windows is free and if you don't have an account, they can't monetize you at all. At that point, you are no longer a customer so there isn't much point in them continuing to support you.
> Because the writing has been on the wall that people are no longer going to pay for operating systems.
I don't mean to be rude, but when has that writing not been on the wall? You can find scripts to activate Windows on fucking github. Like maybe people would be less apt to steal it if it wasn't so insanely simple to do that you could automate the process in a bat file?!
Add to it, I'd bet money the VAST majority of the time, people are using those things to install Windows to devices that already had Windows installed legally from the factory, with a legal license purchased by the OEM, that Microsoft refuses to, and has refused to permit users to reinstall with since I was a young bab in 1999, despite the fact that my GRANDMOTHER knows that the longer you run an install of Windows, the worse it performs, because it's poorly engineered.
Personally, I'd be fine paying for Windows if I could buy perpetual, permanent licenses for it that I could install with repeatedly, and that the OS wasn't constantly shoving ads in my face, haranguing me about using a stupid Microsoft account, and using enough telemetry to enable identity theft. But Windows licensing has always, always been exclusively the domain of PC manufacturers and corporations. Microsoft refuses to make it even slightly better to use for users, which is why users by and large just crack it and get on with their lives. $200 for a key you can use three times is fucking absurd.
~70% of desktop computing today is performed on MS devices (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide). Virtually all of that 70% is done on a paid operating system (mostly OEMs as you noted). While I think that it has been clear that we are moving to a free OS model since the Apple revival (iPhone driven, not desktop) the speed of this change is slow. There is no point in MS trying to rush it as they would just cannibalize what is still a ~$24B business for them.
How easy it is to steal something isn't really a good measure here. First, the vast majority of MS customers can not find a script on GitHub and run it and most don't have a desire too. MS is likely willing to live with some level of piracy as stamping it out would cause larger revenue loses than accepting it. That doesn't tell us anything about their strategy or the market.
As to the OEMs, MS is essentially doing what you suggest and offering a tiered model. If you buy Windows yourself at full price, then you can re-install it, change hardware, etc. If you get it through an OEM (where MS is selling that license at a massive discount) you don't have those rights. I'm not saying I love these choices - especially the BS about limited installs and hidden licenses - just that the choice does exist. (We can have a reasonable argument about the Windows tax - less important now, but still a thing).
If we're right about the future, MS has to replace that $24B somehow. Their current plan is services so they need to tie MS users to MS services and monetize those. In this case, it seems that MS doesn't believe that there are enough folks like you who are willing to pay > $100 for a license so they are pursuing this path.
Good news is - unlike the 1990's, we have multiple, credible alternatives so you can pick non-Windows systems.
They could at least learn from the tier model on planes. Pick the cheap and miserable experience where you'll get ignored the whole flight or the luxury seating with great attention and decent dining.
As it is now, Microsoft gives everyone below Enterprise the same bad ad-cluttered, zero-privacy experience. There's no motivation for an individual to spend more.
I am fine with that. If they provide any kind of valuable services I will make account with them and pay them money. So why not start with that small part of the project - make anything people want.
8% of revenue in perpetuity seems like a licensing deal, not payment for services. WP is arguing that they don't need a license deal to deliver their service which seems to be true? Therefore, the 8% just seems like a shakedown to get money - good old blackmail.
Did you read the PDF? WP Engine answers this - quote below. They employed (or used to employ) WordPress core contributors and have spent lots of money in the community. It's not 'Matt's Product' but an open source code base supported by a large community.
=== Quote ===
Contrary to Mr. Mullenweg’s statements that WP Engine does not contribute to his
narrow and self-serving definition of the WordPress community, WP Engine has
been deeply dedicated to advancing the use and adoption of WordPress through
innovation, investment, and active community involvement. WP Engine has
contributed tens of millions of dollars in ongoing support for the broader
community through events, sponsorships, and the development of educational
resources, including sponsorship of WordCamps worldwide and producing
DE{CODE}; educating and empowering the WordPress community through
content like the WordPress Roundup and the Building WordPress series; hosting,
funding and actively maintaining multiple Open Source projects (e.g., ACF,
WPGraphQL, faust.js) within the ecosystem used by millions of websites around
the world; and producing informative webinars, podcasts, and tutorials. Even
considering Mr. Mullenweg’s incorrect statement that contribution is only based on
hours worked and contributors to Five for the Future, Mr. Mullenweg falsely stated
that WP Engine is failing on this metric. In reality, WP Engine is ranked 30 out of
189 in hours contributed and 16 out of 189 in contributors, significantly outpacing
multiple other contributors relative to our revenue.
=== End Quote ===
Blackmail is not okay - even if what he argues is true. He could have just done his presentation as he wanted and, as long as his claims are actually true, he wouldn't have had any trouble. Instead he tried to Blackmail a company into giving his FOR PROFIT COMPANY money. This wasn't about supporting WordPress, this was about rent seeking for his own organization.
The Cost and Usage Report (CUR) from AWS is just a fine-grained listing of all the resources in your account and their cost. It can be dumped out on different schedules (hourly, daily, monthly) and in different formats (CSV, Parquet).
It is pretty common to configure the CUR files to be dumped into your S3 account and query them via Athena. Athena is billed as $ per TB scanned ($5 last time I looked), so the cost will be based on how often the data is being queried. Downside is that each query can take quite a while to execute depending on data size.
The other common option is to ingest the CUR data into Redshift which gives you better control / options for performance, manipulation, etc. but requires that you set up and manage Redshift.
Hard to tell exactly what the Athena cost here would be as it depends on the number of assets in the account and the frequency in which you are querying the CUR. However, you can issue quite a bit of Athena queries on CUR data for most AWS use cases without incurring too much cost. Unless you have a rapidly changing environment (e.g. hundreds of k of assets turning over daily) or just tons of standing assets, you should be safe to assume hundreds a day at the most? Probably much less for most use cases. This is assuming they are querying once and storing rather than real time querying all the time and normal usage patters, etc.
Undecided did a couple of videos on this technology. It seems quite useful for heat storage - as other commenters have noted, it isn't that efficient for pure electric <-> electric storage.
While SQLite supports the special filename :memory: that allows the creation of databases in memory, there is no built-in way to populate such a database using raw bytes without hitting disk as an intermediate step. This virtual filesystem overcomes that limitation.
I'm sure MS sees a future where Windows is free and if you don't have an account, they can't monetize you at all. At that point, you are no longer a customer so there isn't much point in them continuing to support you.