That would be wasting their market position.
If vendors can expect say 10% of people to choose a non-windows option it would suffice for microsoft to offer a 20% discount in return for the vendor not offering such an option.
10% might actually be a bit low, there are a lot of people willing to install windows themselves and use one of the comically easy unlock methods.
I’m pretty sure that Microsoft pays OEMs for having Windows pre installed just like any other adware.
That would be wasting their market position.
If vendors can expect say 10% of people to choose a non-windows option it would suffice for microsoft to offer a 20% discount in return for the vendor not offering such an option.
10% might actually be a bit low, there are a lot of people willing to install windows themselves and use one of the comically easy unlock methods.
Wasting their market position? That’s literally how this works in the first place.
And you overestimate the percentage of people that are willing to not have a pleasant ootb experience.