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From: -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,alt.comp.os.windows-10
Subject: Re: End Of 10 Project
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2025 19:40:32 -0400
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On 6/22/25 09:36, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> On 2025/6/22 13:6:34, chrisv wrote:
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> []
>>> It is true if you include the writeoff of existing hardware which is 
>>> still
>>> fully functional, but cannot run Windows 11.
>>
>> The price of the new PC is the entire cost.  There is no "writeoff" to
>> be added to arrive at the total cost of the upgrade.
> 
> Yes there is. If, all other things being equal, someone had budgeted for 
> a PC as having, say, two or three years' useful work in it (say, talking 
> until some hardware fails), but now find s/he now has to not only buy a 
> new computer but retire the old one, that cost certainly has to be 
> included in the cost of the "up"grade. (OK, less anything s/he can get 
> back by selling the old one. But that assumes they can find someone to 
> sell it to, who isn't also obliged to Move To The New.)>

There's probably a lot of nuances here when it comes to stuff like 
marginal utility as well as business tax law for how equipment gets 
written off as business expenses.  Naturally, these can & will vary for 
the home PC user's use cases.

For example, it used to be that that PC would be written off across a 
five year depreciation life, so ($1000/5 years = $200/year).  As such, 
if a PC had to be replaced at just 3 years, 60% of it would have already 
been written off as a business expense.  Of course currently, the IRS 
code has a "Bonus Depreciation", which as of 2024 was 60%, so instead of 
$200/year, it gets $680 written off the first year, which is 60% of $1K, 
plus 1/5th of the 40% ($400) remainder:  $600 + $80 = $680.  And for 
years 2-5, it gets $80/year.  FYI, the 2025 Bonus Depreciation drops to 
40%, so starting now, it would be ($400+$120) = $520, then $120/yr.


>>> That’s the problem: Microsoft is forcing users to incur extra costs, 
>>> just to boost its own bottom line.
>>
>> That's not fair.  There are good reasons for the move.
>>
> There are always improvements (and degradations too, but I'll ignore 
> those for the moment); however, whether they are ones that will actually 
> benefit in a financial sense, isn't always clear, and is definitely 
> going to vary from business to business (and person to person). [I, for 
> example, didn't feel a _lot_ of benefit going from XP to 7, and can' 
> think of _anything_ - other than the below - that I've experienced 
> having had to move from 7 to 10. Computers mostly did all I wanted them 
> to do, somewhere around five to ten years ago.]The one (or two) aspects 
> for which people _have_ to upgrade are: 1. Security concerns. I 
> personally feel this aspect is exaggerated for the experienced user, but 
> I can see that particularly for the newbie, it _is_ a concern. For the 
> rest of us, yes, black-hat hackers will continue to find holes, that 
> might not be patched, in older OSs - but I think the incidence of 
> exploitation of those is perhaps of a similar order to the exploitation 
> of new holes in the new OS? 2. Things not remaining compatible with the 
> older OS. I'd say the majority of such are web pages, where they use 
> some feature of browsers, which is not present on versions of browsers 
> old OSs support. This _ought_ not to be a problem, but is, because web 
> developers tend to use the latest versions of development tools, which 
> use new features by default. (Often, even where compiling for the older 
> versions actually offers no new feature - they just default to the new. 
> [Like .docx rather than .doc, and the other parts of Office; I've yet to 
> encounter anyone who actually _uses_ whatever new features that change 
> involved.])

There's also a lot of work being done in areas that seem divergent to 
just the OS but nevertheless needs OS hooks to work (well) - or at least 
an upgrade cycle to pay for it ... a contemporary example is IMO 
probably Microsoft Teams which surged in application during CoVid.


-hh