For years I feared the upgrade from Windows 10 to 11, or should I say, I feared having to fix what the upgrade would break. From past upgrades I knew that my settings, third-party apps and technical familiarity would be replaced by unnecessary “improvements.” That I would fall for another Microsoft ruse to enable Windows to do more than I wanted or needed it to do. That my operating system would exceed its point of maximum utility (PMU).
To make sure that my fears were warranted, I conducted a brief search to see whether other Windows users were just as reluctant to click “Install.” I was surprised to find that there were an estimated 500 million to 1 billion users who were similarly hesitant. And these polls probably captured only a fraction of the actual number of them. Even conservative estimates were enough to convince me that (1) I wasn’t alone in my apprehensions and (2) no product in history has been so unwelcome as Windows 11.
Given that the widespread reluctance to install Windows 11 was not a matter of expense (it was free) or difficulty (all it took was a click), I had to assume that it was due to an absence of demand. That Windows 10 had already exceeded its PMU and therefore users regarded Windows 11 as nothing more than an unnecessary pain in the ass. Of course the company spun the upgrade as necessary, characterizing this mass procrastination as a “security disaster.” But few were heeding the wolf cry. Probably because it wasn’t the first time the company had threat-baited them and attributed their reluctance to a lack of tech savvy. Now they were savvy to the company’s compulsion to do more.
Microsoft’s mission statement reads, “Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” This hegemonic drive to sell more and install more product in more homes and more organizations so that more people can achieve more (analogous to Sherwin Williams pouring its paint over the planet) didn’t jive with what consumers wanted or needed. So the company countered profit-inhibiting satisfaction with its current product by fabricating a need for more. It made the upgrade to Windows 11 mandatory by obsolescing Windows 10, issuing a security warning that maintenance on the older operating system would soon cease. It made the upgrade an unavoidable necessity.
Like any technology or tool, an operating system can reach a point at which it does everything that you need it to do. Older technologies, such as the claw hammer, achieved their PMU long ago. They couldn’t be improved beyond their primary function. These older technologies didn’t go extinct. They simply achieved functional homeostasis, a standard beyond which any so-called improvement would have hampered their utility.
The two basic laws of functionality are (1) things have a function to the extent that they meet a need and (2) things meet a need to the extent that they overcome an inability. No matter how a computer is used—to peruse the wares of several hundred stores, identify articles from several hundred publications or watch several hundred TikTok videos—it will overcome the human inability to do as much. That is, like any technology, it will address the inability quantitatively, it will allow humans to do more than humans can do on their own.
Once I had Windows 11 installed, it generally met my expectations of being an unnecessary pain in the ass. I mean, Windows upgrades have been useless for over a decade, so it didn’t disappoint. Some features had been shuffled around. There were a few minor esthetic alterations to no functional end. There were more processes going on that had nothing to do with the primary one and did nothing but make my CPU chug. These little byte hogs ran in the background, mostly collecting and sending user data back to the mothership. Most were user surveillance services and executables that couldn’t be disabled without negatively impacting the operating system.
The upgrade included a lot of superfluous activity that in tech jargon is called bloat. The ostensible reason for the bloat, according to Microsoft, was to “improve your experience.” Though my only experience was a slower processor, which I can’t qualify as an improvement. The company maintains that its upgrades offer increased functionality. But that’s just guff, because the demand for increased functionality ceased to exist long ago.
Perhaps when quantum hits the market and we can control operating systems with our minds there will be a demand for more functionality. But in binary digital computing, the drive-screen-keyboard paradigm is as useful as it gets and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. It’s also possible that telepathic operating systems may be too costly and invasive for most people to care they exist. You know, people who aren’t rich nerds striving for immortality and only need a computer to do a few basic things.
The technical evolution of the self-filling fountain pen is a good example of a technology that reached its PMU, yet abides. The piston-filling mechanism invented by Theodore Kovacs in 1923 and introduced in the Pelikan 100 was more functional and robust than any filler before it. Companies like Parker, Sheaffer and Conklin struggled to make better fillers, housing them in a variety of iconic models, such as the Parker Vacumatic, the Sheaffer Triumph and the Conklin Nozac. But their filler mechanisms were not as robust and effective as Kovacs’ piston filler. Eventually, the industry ceased trying outdo Kovacs’ design, and the piston filler prevailed as the filling mechanism in most top-shelf fountain pens.
In much the same way, Windows has prevailed over other operating systems and become an industry standard. At present, it represents 76% of the personal computing market share, compared with macOS’s 16%. Though Microsoft dominates the personal-computing market, especially the workplace and industrial market, the company has not put the reins on bloat. Its so-called improvements represent no advance in elegance, integrity and robustness. Its esthetic changes, such as rounded corners on application windows and the centering of the Windows function on the task bar serve no functional end. Features that compromise processing speed, like the Antimalware executable, abound. User data collection has expanded in more ways than I care to list. And Microsoft’s dreaded AI chat bot, Copilot, is now integrated with the operating system and proving to be more unpopular than Cortana was. On the web, Copilot accounts for a declining 1.1% of the AI market, while Google’s Gemini accounts for 21.5% and ChatGPT for 64.5%. Evidently, other companies do AI better and users know it.
So why does Microsoft insist on doing more? Would it be too much to ask the company to heed the demand for quality instead of quantity? To stop adding more when all we want is less? After having been threat-baited into installing Windows 11, which has no salient advantage over Windows 10, I’ve found that my fear of getting the upgrade was warranted and my fear of not getting it was not. Which begs the larger question of whether the computer industry is capable of ceasing to do more when more is useless.