content: The fact that it's free (as in NSA-subsidized)  Or, you know, the fact that they cannot compete in any other way anymore. OS X is free for existing customers (everyone on their hardware?), Linux is not going to set you back a whole lot (a mere $0), which made Windows the odd one out. I think they'll actually revisit their plans to add a price tag after a year as it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If after a year they haven't charmed the holdouts, a price tag certainly won't help things along. But I digress.  clearly indicates that Microsoft is fully playing ball.  It indicates nothing, and as I've written in another post: if Microsoft is in the business of invasion of privacy on this scale, they will irreversibly fuck themselves over. People will be scrutinizing Windows a lot more now that the price tag has been removed and certain questionable data gathering directives have been implemented. But this is stuff Google has been doing for ages, and Microsoft has already had some of the stuff up and running for many years now. Don't for a second think Windows wasn't under hard scrutiny before though. In short, this is no "doomsday scenario"... but it's a step in the wrong direction as far as I'm concerned, and I'm obviously not alone in thinking so. And as I've said before: I'm going to wait and see what comes of this. It looks like a slick OS, but I definitely want to be rid of some of the same things that concern many of the very vocal people in the tin foil hat brigades.