this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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Nobody wants Copilot Pro AI for Office 365 — so Microsoft will force-bundle it and raise the price (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 5 days ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 27 points 5 days ago (2 children)

or just use LibreOffice

If you work in an office or for an office or are connected to an office ... let them pay for it and use the software on their systems.

It's also a great excuse to disconnect from the office anyway ... if someone calls you after hours to do work ... tell them you need to access your computer at the office and won't do the work until you get back to your desk.

Otherwise, if there is no requirement from anyone and you're just doing some word processing yourself at home or doing some basic spreadsheets ... just use Open Source Software ... there's plenty of them around.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 21 points 5 days ago (2 children)

the catch is when you really need specifically O365 for some reason, e.g. we had to get the O365 download version for my kid's schooling because that was the specific version the "this is how you do office shit" classes were taught against, the online O365 didn't cut it

of course even the teacher was telling the kids "look you should just use libreoffice" lol

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Is the school providing the license? because if they're not, then it is a rough call to require and force parents to pay for a non essential tool. This is why FOSS is such a powerful education ally. It doesn't cost any of the end users any money. This kind of things is why people still think MS products as the default. MS spent a lot of money in marketing to force education to treat them as such.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

you are both correct and fatuous, which is an ideal combination

assume that in the past 25 years everyone here has heard the gospel of RMS

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

But why the downvote? Just because things suck we should just lie down and take it? We can at least talk about how it sucks and we wish it were different. There's nothing silly in wanting the world to be better.

[–] self@awful.systems 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

you are, without any sense of shame, evangelizing libreoffice to someone who compiled it straight from git like 12 hours ago because they use it constantly, in a community made entirely out of techies deeply involved with open source projects

and now you’re complaining that your weak shit got a tiny number of downvotes? cause we didn’t clap like seals at the mere idea of the existence of open source software? fuck right off, thanks

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

say friend, have you heard about our lord and saviour Richard

jooooin us nooow and shaaaare the soooooftware

[–] self@awful.systems 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

you’ve fucking done it

my next movie marathon is gonna be Revolution OS, Battlefield Earth, Antitrust, and then I’m going to go into a coma

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

no no! you have so much to live for! like

(#include )

never mind, knock yourself out and rise up in vengeance

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 2 points 4 days ago

may my revenant embody the stuff vc nightmares are made of

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That's the thing .... most people who are doing work themselves at home and for their own purposes, never need something like O365 ... when it comes to schooling it should be the same, unless the school is doing very specific particular thing just to justify using O365, then it shouldn't be required

Word processing is very simple ... I have an old Underwood typewriter from 1921 ... I can write and format a letter using it if I wanted to ... it shouldn't be any more complicated than that.

Microsoft pushing their software is just a cheap salesman selling snake oil that you don't need and doesn't do anything special.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 5 points 5 days ago

you are now getting fatuous in your evangelism and should desist

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 5 points 4 days ago

My mom will never grok LibreOffice.

I tried to switch her for a long time but I gave up when she called me one day to complain that her coworker can't open a file she saved. Apparently the coworker in question was too, emm, talented to open an .odf

There are things that are outside of human reach. I can't even put into words the strife that MSFT caused in my house when they switched Internet Explorer to Edge and thus "broke" her computer.

[–] zoostation@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I hate AI as much as anyone, but this article is shitty fearmongering. Buried at the end it admits there's actually no price increase, there's just a new tier with optional features.

A “classic” Office 365 subscription will be available at the old price if you really don’t want the AI — for now.

[–] self@awful.systems 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

congrats on just learning about the corporation named “Microsoft”

now fuck off

[–] self@awful.systems 17 points 5 days ago (2 children)

consider the raw, stupid energy of reporting me to myself for violating a civility rule that doesn’t exist and never will

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Trump won dontcha know now it's time for C I V I L I T Y

[–] self@awful.systems 8 points 5 days ago

that’s absolutely the ploy — in almost every instance, civility rules are used to punish marginalized people while giving polite fascists a pass (and the ability to normalize the behavior of impolite fascists)

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 3 points 4 days ago

We should harness this and power ChatGPT with it

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Not really fear mongering, when Microsoft has proven that the "for now" is held up. Like the whole Recall fiasco. They canceled it "for now", and now it's published. Their "for now" is actually "for just right now, until heat subsides". Microsoft can go suck on a tailpipe.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 5 points 4 days ago

Australian users are already reporting they can't actually find the "classic" option at all.

[–] subignition@piefed.social 4 points 5 days ago

"for now" doing some extremely heavy lifting there

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

Nobody wants a fucking spy in the company. WTF!