Microsoft Wants to Introduce You to 801 Of Their Closest Friends

You have probably heard this expression before, but it bears repeating. If you are not paying for a service, then you are the product.

Case in point. Microsoft has always offered a free email product in Windows called, very creatively, Windows mail. But it really was a pretty horrible competitor to GMail and other mail products out there.

On the other hand, Microsoft also has Outlook. Used and abused by more than 300 million people. But it is far from free. There is also an Outlook web app, but that is not a local app installed on your computer and, apparently, at least 300 million people think a local app that you have to pay for is better than a free web tool.

So what if you replaced Windows mail with a new and improved app, called, again creatively, Outlook. That ought to confuse people into thinking they are getting Outlook for Office for free.

Now don’t be confused; they are not giving away Outlook that is included in many versions of Office.

This is a Windows 10/11 app that is designed to replace Windows mail. Okay, so that is nice. Microsoft is upgrading Windows Mail. So what?

Well, Microsoft has competition these for mail and calendar apps. While they have sold 300 million seats of Office, there is always a desire for more. But people like GMail, for example, for a number of very legitimate reasons. And, there are hundreds of competitors, all free. None of these help Microsoft’s revenue stream and since selling licenses to Windows is getting harder, they had to come up with a different way to make more money.

Enter the Outlook app. Mail. Calendar. And more. as a revenue stream.

The more is that, like GMail and other products, Microsoft will be collecting a treasure trove of data from you and they will be, by default, collecting a lot of data. To wit, this is what a new user is greeted by:

You might think that most people will click on Reject all, but believe it or not, that is not true. Microsoft is hoping that you will click on Accept all. Then they can sell that data to those 801 of their closest friends.

Microsoft, like many other companies, figures out that ad revenue is the key to their future. After all, Google and Facebook make billions doing it. Why shouldn’t they get a piece of the pie?

As long as you are willing to let them scrape your device and the contents of your data to sell to the highest bidder, click accept. Otherwise click reject. Credit: Proton (Proton makes private mail, calendar, contact and VPN apps)

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