Microsoft is constantly looking for ways to monetize its operating system and has found yet another way of sneaking in a soft form of advertising. This time it will be within the Windows 11 start menu, where (in the near future) it will begin showing “promoted” apps.
It will appear under the “recommended” section of the start menu. Allowing the company to charge others to promote their apps within that space. It will be a lot like you’d expect to find within an app store. Only built directly into one of your operating system’s most commonly used features/sections.
At first, it may not seem like a big deal. However, others who have had to pay for the operating system/license are complaining that they don’t want to be so advertised to within something they paid for (which makes sense). If the company continued down the route of providing Windows 11 for free, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. However, Microsoft has explained that it would be moving away from the strategy and back toward charging for the licenses.
Unless there is a severe backlash from the community, Microsoft will continue to find ways (both subtle and large) to squeeze advertising into the operating system to maximize its revenue flow coming from Windows products. Not to mention Microsoft Office or anything else it can squeeze it into.
For now, it doesn’t seem to have gotten too bad and most users have come to accept various subtle ads injected throughout the operating system and other products. As long as the company doesn’t completely spam users through everything they click on.
