The sad part is that it's totally possible to run Windows without any of the snooping and annoying extras: our corporate Windows PCs run great, no distracting anything.
It's just the consumer that gets screwed and, let's be honest, who is willing to pay the actual price of a SW license anymore? I remember paying hundreds of dollars for SW in the pre-internet era. So instead of paying in dollars you now pay with your data. The fact that Linux is still underrepresented on the desktop just shows that we're willing to put up with it to get the shiny thing.
It's just the consumer that gets screwed and, let's be honest, who is willing to pay the actual price of a SW license anymore? I remember paying hundreds of dollars for SW in the pre-internet era. So instead of paying in dollars you now pay with your data. The fact that Linux is still underrepresented on the desktop just shows that we're willing to put up with it to get the shiny thing.