🇳🇿
This article explains all the reasons why we should actively shun Microsoft products and kindly but firmly refuse to collaborate with people who use them, polluting the world with their effectively proprietary formats... this is a teaching opportunity. Microsoft are a bad actor - people should avoid being sullied by association. And Google is only slightly better. https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/23/g_suite_javier_soltero_interview/
More accurately, this doesn't explain, it illustrates. And all the poor folks who use MS Office day in and day out (and don't realise that there's any other software - this is a large percentage of people) are the "pressure" that forces the waters of digital injustice through the pipes. Some might think this is minor... but it's pervasive. And it's emblematic of the injustice perpetrated daily with impunity by mega-corporations. Not acceptable.
@lightweight Prior to the MS Windows and Office monopoly, I found the best way to meet my needs was to choose the best applications from different companies. If the Microsoft monopoly hadn't existed, the office ecosystem might have followed that model, and application interoperability would have crushed any need for suites.
I'm sure MS Word and Access would not exist today in such a world. Excel might even have died off due to it's early spreadsheet size limits.
@lightweight Yes, but without the monopoly influence, suites might have not survived. A business might get a better deal with a suite, but individuals weren't buying the all the business components due to price. Microsoft bundled Office, so it was "free" like Windows was "free". ( Came with your computer.) Individuals actually drove Office and Windows adoption into the businesses.
@lwriemen Microsoft is a drug dealer - first hit's free - and people are suckers for demoware, and don't like to learn anything. Give it to schools, include it on new computers (leveraging the Windows monopoly). People don't love Office, they just literally don't know anything else. They're absurdly frightened of digital change, and have experienced huge pain even with change within the MSFT monoculture (from version to version) so "there be dragons" for anything they haven't even experienced!
@lwriemen MSFT trades in fear of the unknown and the learned helplessness of their average user. They're also *great* at selling to uninformed institutional decision makers (with is nearly all decision makers). They're great a providing attractive, generous, well spoken account managers who form a relationship with their quarry/customer and reinforce certain purchasing decisions. And damn others with faint praise and fearful uncertainty.
@lwriemen yup, suites are all about proprietary control. They aren't at all about excellent software.