This is absolutely true, but really, consider the real world for once: we're looking at people using PCs. If MS annoys them too much, they will hop over. They have alternatives, too, that they even already use such as smartphone and tablet. ARM is right there. Chromebooks exist. Linux exists.
I've chosen the alternative for the reasons I gave and I'll be honest - That choice is present for everyone, if it's not used then the fault lies directly on the user. Earlier a reference to voting was made, I cast my vote by saying "No" and that's fair enough.
So far the market has clearly vouched for MS and its OS at large. And it still does, despite the alternatives. For business, that is even more strongly the case. Thát is MS's core business. It is not cloud! Cloud is just a means to better serve that core business, and hopefully get some more money out of it. But it is also the very thing that keeps people away from mass adopting (and only adopting) the alternatives. Adoption rate/marketshare is everything - MS missed the boat on that one with a lot of things (mobile for example, but also digital software distribution, search, browser), and they are going to be very careful about their one major bastion: Windows. They didn't give us a free upgrade because it was the right thing to do...
As far as I'm concerned MS gave it away free as a hook.
They know for example gaming is BIG business and Windows is king, the threat was for another platform to come along and begin siphoning off gamers to something newer, better than before. Even if you don't call yourself a gamer, if you play games at all chances are you have a Steam account and use it, many PC's out there aren't hard-core machines for gaming with hard-core gamers using them. The ones that do it on occasion makes up a fairly large chunk of the gaming market/PC percentage too because in reality not everyone has a machine for gaming first with all else as a secondary useage. Since I'm not a gamer nor have a Steam account things about DX12 and such makes 0 difference to me.
I do agree they missed out on alot of the things you mentioned and took steps to regain what was lost but as you said it wasn't done because it was the right thing to do.
Look at Windows 8 reception. It was horrible enough for MS to push 8.1 with major UI changes. This company listens to 'us'. It won't always be perfect for everyone, but its quite a long way in the right direction. I'd say much more so than for example Google. Another example: security breaches. MS has a pretty damn strong track record in that sense if you consider the scale and number of attack vectors possible. They have a mastery of things x86 very few companies have and in my opinion are pretty good caretakers of it. The company's been accused of many things, but its certainly not pushing a scary new reality on us. There are other tech companies doing that push. MS just follows along, but it does that with services that are actually useful, and not some silly social media or in-home speakers. Even Cortana hasn't had the slightest privacy issue yet. MS is very careful with that.
The difference is Win 8 was just horrid right out of the box.
It did work but the look was almost alien and the menus weren't exactly easy to figure out until you messed around with it, some obvious things it needed as it was just wasn't there. I actually had a time just trying to find the shut down button at first to power down the machine and like yourself I know my way around a machine well enough - Imagine what the average user was thinking as they tried to navigate through all the tiles trying to find it.
And all the "In-Your-Face" crap was a big turnoff too.
I mean between all the stuff it threw up once in the OS it reminded me of a blindingly bright blingy flashing neon Vegas sign with epilectic-inducing properties done in Mega-Crayola-Vision, sprinkled with ads along the same lines imbedded and other useless crap.
They did a good job scaling it back with Win 10, at least that was obvious with the release of it. TBH I tried Win 10 and it was "Ok" on the surface but that damned Cortana just woudn't go away, was described elsewhere as an AI included in the OS and to a point that's accurate.
Didn't really like the feel of it either, Linux Mint is way friendlier in my opinion but that's just me.
However the thing that sealed the deal were the forced updates with telemetry, after noting it would force these on you and then change settings on it's own to continue it was the final nail in the coffin for me.
As one may say if you don't like it, just dont use it - I don't.
No need to justify my choice to anyone because
it is my choice and I've made it like all the rest here have either for or against.
To each his own.
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