My point was that buying an MS OS is NOT subscribing to a service - it's buying a product. I then install that OS on hardware I bought, note not MS bought, and I use it to run MY choice of software for MY purposes. MS do NOT have any right to subsequently mess around with it, even resulting in things that I rely on and that used to work no longer doing so.
VM and Sky are different. You are supplied hardware
as part of a subscription to a service. Hardware cost is built-in to the cost which is why you have a minimum contract period.
Phones are a hybrid, but even where a phone is supplied with the service, that being the provision of the airtime service, you'll usually vind two contracts, one for the hardware, and one for airtime.
In either the case of VM/Sky, or phone, outside of very limited situations you are committed to monthly payments, for that minimum term. For MS OS's, and in my case for Application software too, I pay a one-off charge, up-front, whether I use the software for 10 years, or 10 minutes. Of course, MS are clearly moving OS supply in the direction of a service, just as they already have with some application supply routes (365) and,
IMHO, it's now only a matter of time before they want a monthly payment for Windows, too, just like Adobe for Photoshop, etc.
As for me not using a smartphone, this is part of why I don't. And until/unless things change, won't. It's tied in to privacy. The attitude that companies that supply this stuff have the right go treat data on how their users use the product, what they do with it, as
theirs. Hell, no.
It's not that I don't want a smartphone, or wouldn't find one useful. It's that I don't want one badly enough to put up with the implications, and it's not so useful that I need it rather than finding it useful. Essentially, for me, the downside FAR outweighs the upside,
because of these sorts of issues and the corporate mindset behind them.