>If I want to use these things let me opt in.

This is a case of whether the device should be secure by default or if the user should have to opt in to security. Microsoft has chosen the position that account security should be there by default which is why it's not opt in for using an Microsoft account. I think this is a reasonable design decision to make.

>Here's one.

An app store recommendation is not an ad. The OS is helping the user find content that they may be looking for. It isn't an ad surface where companies are bidding to show up for keywords. The word ad is used by the article to stir drama and drive clicks.

>If I install an operating system and there's a Netflix logo in the application menu when I don't havw a Netflix account and was never asked if I wanted it, it's bloat.

But there are plenty of people who do have a Netflix account and Netflix showing up there is helping them accomplish something they want to do with their new computer. You have to understand that most people are not that good with computers and surfacing these things in more places can legitimately help them out.

I'm sorry if I seem completely out of the loop as I haven't used windows at all for at least a decade at this point.

> This is a case of whether the device should be secure by default or if the user should have to opt in to security. Microsoft has chosen the position that account security should be there by default which is why it's not opt in for using an Microsoft account. I think this is a reasonable design decision to make.

Opt-out security is the better model to have but I don't see how security features require a microsoft account to function. This isn't the case on any other operating system as security is not bound to having an account for some external service. Rather this seems like an artificial limitation that microsoft has created to push other microsoft services on the user as someone that only uses windows to play steam games that don't use a microsoft account have no use for one regardless if they use windows or not.

Can you point to a particualr security feature that would stop functioning and that needs to have an account and that couldn't use a hardware security key for 2FA (if 2FA is a requirement)?

> But there are plenty of people who do have a Netflix account and Netflix showing up there is helping them accomplish something they want to do with their new computer. You have to understand that most people are not that good with computers and surfacing these things in more places can legitimately help them out.

Helping users use the app store which the majority are capable of should be sufficient unless the app store is so complex that it's practically unusable for the majority. The majority are also capable of using phones to install games, netflix, and other applications without having to be tech savy to do so.

Those users which aren't capable of operating the app store (usually the elderly) either have family that help them set things up or simply aren't your customers as they don't own computers.

>Can you point to a particualr security feature that would stop functioning and that needs to have an account and that couldn't use a hardware security key for 2FA (if 2FA is a requirement)?

No, as the security key can provide the identity instead of the Microsoft account.

>Helping users use the app store which the majority are capable of should be sufficient

If you want to provide a good user experience you shouldn't stop at sufficient.

>Those users which aren't capable of operating the app store

It's not about a binary yes or no. It's about making it easier to accomplish what users want to do.

> The OS is helping the user find content that they may be looking for

If that's not an ad I don't know what is!

I hate it and won't use a computer that does it.

Pray tell then, what do you do your computing on? I get those prompts for features the manufacturer thinks I might want to use (but don't) on my Android phones, my iPads, the YouTube app, Firefox, and pretty much everywhere else.

Fedora Workstation.

Yeah, it's unavoidable on phones with either Android or iOS without making huge compromises on things like banking and payments.

Finding relevant ads is a search and recommendation problem, but not all search and recommendations are done for ads. In this case there is a search over popular apps in the store as opposed to an search through an ad inventory.