You guys know I love a good multinational techno monopolist as much as the next guy. Yet despite my undying love for their unquestionably valuable contributions to society, and sustainability first approach to solving the world's problems, this week Microsoft really took the jam out of my donut.
Really, it was a small thing. Just a friendly little email to let me know that they've changed their cancellation policy. They wanted me to know that they're changing things up so that if I cancel my subscription during the middle of my annual subscription, they'll no longer refund me pro-rata the unused portion. Instead, I have a 7-day window after the start of every annual renewal to cancel, then they'll refund the prorated amount for the upcoming year.
Do you like critical thinking? I love critical thinking, so lets look at this together.
Most obviously, Microsoft doesn't say the quiet part. It's clear they know this is worse for everybody except Microsoft, and they don't even try to make up an excuse for the change. They just don't say anything and hope you don't notice.
We noticed, right?
So what didn't they say? Firstly, if you cancel 8 or more days after the renewal of your subscription, they keep all your money! Now, for me who pays for a single seat, this would only see me lose about 250 bucks (AUD). And yes, it is a loss because Microsoft has my money and I would have nothing. However if an organisation of say, 40 people, decided they were going to dump Microsoft's trash for Google's trash (as an obvious example), that organisation would lose up to $10000. Even if I was to be more generous and hypothesise such a switch was to happen mid-cycle, that's still $5000.
You have a 7 day window, out of 365, where you can cancel a Microsoft 365 subscription without Microsoft taking more from you than what they've earnt. It's a cancellation fee, and they don't even have the decency to call it such. At least Adobe have a cancellation fee to try and hide.
Secondly, and this one cracks me up, if you do cancel within the narrow window in which they won't steal from you, you still don't get a full refund. They prorata the few days you did use. Yes, Microsoft, an almost US$3.5 Trillion company, will take the 5 bucks (or $200 for 40 ppl) for the M365 you used for those 7 days. It seems even more batshit crazy now that I do the numbers.
Interestingly, if I click the link supplied in the email that literally says "Learn more about the cancellation policy.", it takes you to this page which does not include the cancellation policy, nor any reason for the change in policy, only how to cancel.
Eggs and Baskets
A few weeks ago I wrote a piece about self-reliance. However, what that article focused on was the skills that one should learn to improve one's self-reliance. While that article looked mostly at the skills, and what we can and can't do ourselves and what choices that opens up for us, today I really wanted to take a look at our dependencies.
This week I attended the ACES Hardware Meetup in the city. The theme for the few talks we had during the evening was about manufacturing and supply chain in our brave (and volatile) new world of tariffs and trade wars. It was great to hear first-hand experiences from both large and small manufacturers, but there was one key takeaway; don't put all your eggs in one basket. For these manufacturers, it meant diversifying their production to other regions - Europe and India for example.
Basically moving some or all of their manufacturing out of China so they could continue to sell their products into the US.
In almost all cases these were reactive manoeuvres. Shutting the gate after the horse has already bolted. In one case, one of these companies was exploring manufacturing in Europe but the timeline was aggressively brought forward by the new tariffs. And came with it's own pain. In fact, this company seemed most disadvantaged by the tariffs on Chinese imports, despite having a nominal head start.
Operatio
Cory Doctorow writes a lot about interoperability. In essence, the ability to export your data and move it to another provider. The more interoperable a service is, the easier it is to move to and from. Of course if your service or product sucks, like I don't know... Microsoft, a lack of interoperability makes it harder for people to leave. The harder it is, the more they will thumb the scales in their favour.
Several months ago I wrote about how I come to be using Keyshot. As I said in the footnote then, I wouldn't ever be against paying a subscription for Keyshot. I would, however, be against being stuck paying for a Keyshot seat that I couldn't leave if they kept ratcheted up the price.
While Keyshot has become an industry standard for Industrial Design product visualisation, it's not the only option. I think if I was to have my time again, I'd likely learn rendering in Blender and just use that. Blender is very good, and being open source it is mostly resistant to 'optimisation' for market capture. If Blender became trash tomorrow, you can be sure there would be forks springing up the day after. Importantly, you would likely still be able to open your decades worth of .blender files.
As I said a couple of weeks ago, an investment of my time into becoming skilled in Blender, would empower me to make the choice about who I should give my money to and why. I might still want to use (and pay for) Keyshot for whatever reason. Importantly, it would be my choice to make, not Luxion's because they've locked me in.
Of course, Blender is one of the open source communities poster children. There's plenty more terrible options out there, and sometimes your only useful options are from for-profit companies.
Agnosticus
To be clear, I'm not saying leave Microsoft and move everything over to open source alternatives. Though you can if that's your prerogative. No, what I'm advocating for here is a mindset, and one I've been embracing for a while.
Every time you need to make a decision as to which basket you must put your eggs, ask yourself what will happen if that basket was to vanished tomorrow.
In medical device manufacturing you almost always set up your supply chain so you have no single points of failure. Especially for critical suppliers. Having at least two concurrent independent suppliers mitigates most supply risks (but not all, eg. COVID). In fact, given the current tariff drama, having independent suppliers in multiple geographic regions could be mighty attractive. Not only does this give you redundancy, but options for who you supply from where.
For me, subscription models immediately raise a red flag. I don't generally consider them unless there's a robust way out, or I can afford to lose whatever becomes locked up in them. Though software on perpetual licenses are not entirely immune, especially as the infrastructure they run on corrodes around them. For me I expect both Keyshot and Solidworks to start having performance issues on Windows, obviously through no fault of either Luxion or Dassault Systèmes.
This unfortunately extends to your devices too. What happens to your beloved connected toaster oven when the manufacturer decides to move previously free features to a paid tier? Will you pay it? Guaranteed, anything you have that is connected to the internet will, one way or another, eventually be taken away from you. Even if that is by you declining to pay the asking price and relegating the device to kerbside collection.
Of course, to a lesser extent this also applies to the non-connected things you buy. Can you buy spare parts, genuine or otherwise? Is it easy to service? Is there a robust consumer community around it?
When the thing you depend on is lost or taken, do you still have options?
Or are you left with no choice?
