I would say that it's as simple as adding a prompt during initial user setup with check boxes. Would you like windows to handle XYZ for you? Instead of assuming all users just want to use their computers to become influencers and forcing frustrating problems onto everyone.

It may have started out with "hey we are doing this for your own good" to now it's "how can we exploit ignorance and data mine our users and put ads on the desktop?"

I like that Linux isn't designed for the lowest common denominator. Windows frustrated me as much with the stuff that was designed for the stupid as the stuff that was designed to make them money, just the second one ended up dominating in the end. But I remember the earlier frustrations often having the thought "I bet they just changed this to reduce support calls from people who don't know wtf they are doing".

I'll agree on the update thing, but absolutely NOT on any of the other parts. Things like OneDrive are ENTIRELY about money.

With the update thing, even "pros" were incredibly lazy with updates in the past. Having automatic updates at least as the default is entirely correct.

I don't trust Microsoft's motivations, but these are all important considerations you bring up.

The lowest step of pushiness is a tray icon. Cinnamon did(does?) it like this. You have an exclamation point in the tray if you have updates available, otherwise it's a green check mark on a shield. I thought this was an elegantly simple and effective solution though, as you point out, easy to ignore.

On the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft have gone to the extreme: you will upgrade, you have limited options to defer, you will backup to our cloud. Updates show up and you get to be surprised every upgrade cycle when something that was formerly working is broken.

I will always opt for freedom for myself and others, but I imagine a middle ground that holds the hands of non-technical users would look something like the warning when you access about:config in Firefox. "Here be dragons!"

Ultimately, on a normie-focused OS it may even be useful to provide the user with information about backups and let them choose. "Having a backup reduces your likelihood of losing your cat memes by %. By confirming below you acknowledge that cloud backup will not be set up. To avoid data loss, please follow the 3-2-1 backup methodology (link).

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