Individuals can do that, and they should if they feel like keeping MS.
Organizations are, unfortunately, probably going to remain stagnant and keep paying millions to for things that have free alternatives.
It’s actually really infuriating. When I was in grad school I filed an information request with the college to see how much they paid for access to Office 365 each year. This was in 2021 and they were paying 4 million a year. Meanwhile their grad student employees were all living deeply below the poverty line.
I’d had the thing since 2003. It was the last non-fedi social media I was holding onto (the only way to keep in touch with certain people, and all that.)
I work in academia. I’m a lowly paid adjunct who teaches 8 classes across 4 schools to make ends meet.
In the lead up to this semester, each school has had a mandatory Zoom meeting to get everyone involved on the same page.
In all 4 instances, I sat there and fucking seethed watching people who make upward of 10 times what I do just endlessly fumble with the technology while saying nothing of value for 2 hours.
It’s honestly amazing just how inept the manager class is.
Formed a union, charmed one of the most beautiful women in the quadrant, saved that quadrant with a mix of intelligence and courage, raised his son to be a war hero, and eventually became the Grand Nagus.
I’m honestly just deeply interested in this guy every time I hear about him.
Not because I think he’s smart, on to something, or at all worthwhile though.
It’s just…. Kind of morbidly entertaining to watch a man spend so much time and money to deal with an obvious and incredible fear of death.
He’s going to die some day, and probably from one of these things he’s paying for to avoid dying. It’s Qin Shi Huang shit.
And, ya know what? There are some truly wonderful and interesting works of philosophy dealing with his exact problem, but our boy is too much of a tech bro to even consider that someone may have found a way to deal with the fear of death a few thousand years ago.
I’ve been thinking for a few years now that, since no one with power ever seems to know what they’re doing, there’s something about power itself that makes the person who holds it selfish and incompetent.