There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.
They told me that when laptops came out. Heck, I even used a laptop exclusively through most of the 00s.
Chromebooks would kill desktops. Then iPads. And smartphones. And cloud computing.
And yet by 2014, I was back to building a desktop PC. And had 3 since. Desktops will always have a small market share because they are the only machine that works for serious work (video editing, etc.)
Will I embrace Microsofts cloud computing? Only if it is cheaper price per power than owning my own equipment. Something tablets, phones, laptops, and cloud computing have all failed to do.
Desktop users are "value* users. And I’m skeptical what MS offers will offer good value to cheapos like me.
If for no other reason most people are only using cell phones. Including children. So the general competency of the next generation using a desktop is lower and lower. Desktops are useful, but they are no longer part of people’s general experience of computing.
Good.
I don’t think so. The less ubiquitous a local operating system is, the more problems hobbyists will have when it comes to support.
Would you really not want to have access to the devices holding your data? I don’t even care for Microsoft sending off anonymized telemetry.