Bonum Certa Men Certa

PornHub Insights for 2022 Show Microsoft’s Consumer Division in Shambles



Reprinted with permission from Ryan

PornHub Insights for 2022 [NSFW] show Microsoft’s Consumer Division in Shambles.



For people who don’t want to click through to PornHub, here are the “SFW” highlights on the technology front.



Normally, I wouldn’t cite them but they collect a large sample of very high quality data about people from all over the world. I feel that they are uniquely, errrm, positioned, to tell us what’s going on.



In light of the 11,000 layoffs just announced at Microsoft, and rumors of a bigger round later this year (the 11,000 were rumors until they weren’t), it’s worth considering why this is happening.



Microsoft’s consumer division is, in a word, collapsing.



Desktop PC usage is down 6% from 2021 to 2022, and Windows is only 64.7% of that.



XBOX fell to only 1/4 of the gaming console market, vs Playstation at nearly 3/4ths, by browser hits. (2021 was 60.6% Playstation and 36.8% XBOX)



Microsoft has no operating system for Mobile, unless you count bribing / threatening Samsung to destroy their brand by preloading crapware that pissed everyone off, and Samsung Internet (the preloaded browser on their phones) has lost over 25% of its mobile marketshare YoY, which I’d suppose is probably a proxy for all of the people ditching annoying buggy Samsung phones with Microsoft garbage, like I did.



Microsoft has been missing the boat on everything, and is a reactive, not proactive, company. Had Windows Mobile been a priority before Android and iPhone, they might have a presence now, but they’ve been reduced to paying off and threatening Spammy Samsung into including their sad “apps”.



Samsung phones are very slow and glitchy, and a lot of that is, you know, not moving in the right direction. It has become a common carrier for malicious software that you can’t get rid of, including hidden Facebook system services that spy on people, even without Facebook accounts. I switched to a Google Pixel last year, and they’re much better. You lie down with dogs, you get fleas. So much for Spamsung.



In Microsoft’s reduced circumstances, they’ve decided to “force the issue” and “discontinue Internet Explorer”.



This Edge thing turned out to be a major strategic blunder that they are now committed to. It’s still there, rotting in the guts of Windows 11 and adding security problems, but they’ve removed all of the convenient ways to launch it.



Despite Internet Explorer falling 69% 🙂 in a single year, Microsoft Edge failed to budge on the desktop. Firefox and Safari actually took a meaningful share on the desktop.



This appears to be because people are buying Macs or not even getting a desktop computer at all and are heading straight to an iPhone.



Since PC sales are in the dumps, (6% drop in hits to PornHub in 2022) and with them Windows license revenues drop even if it remains at 64.7% on the desktop, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a lot of those 11,000 layoffs at Microsoft were in Windows.



We already know that a lot of them happened to the Microsoft Edge team because it leaked out on Twitter.



Teams Impacted by Layoff on 1/18/2023



@tomwarren Twitter is reporting Microsoft’s layoffs today have affected employees in the following divisions:



● HoloLens
● Microsoft Edge
● marketing
● 343 Industries
● Bethesda

-TheLayoff.com


This is the second round of Microsoft Edge layoffs.



The first round was last year, when they whacked a bunch of XBOX people at the same time.



There’s really no use for Edge except to route people to their crappy off brand search engine and give them 3 screens of advertisements before any “results” and they scooped out Google’s spyware and put in Microsoft spyware.



They marketed Edge as “saving you money with price comparisons”, and it’s usually offering you the wrong thing on some other site, and that’s an aside anyway because it’s just another way that their browser is obviously spying on you, keylogging, and password stealing. (There was a scandal a while back where Windows gives all your passwords from Firefox or Chrome to Edge anyway even if you said no.)



Things are going so badly for Microsoft right now that they sacked their paid army of “come back to Windows trolls” last year, over 200 of them on their official payroll.



Things aren’t just “getting” bad at Microsoft, this is 1990 in the Soviet Union. The Berlin wall had come down and there was still denial, there were still a lot of people projecting confidence that “reforms” would make the whole thing go on somehow, but it was on borrowed time.



Very soon, they may even have to stop running the welfare programs for their army of unofficial trolls, like ZDNet and “Debian Stabbers”.



The situation in Azure/”Cloud” isn’t very good. They shuffle money around like Ted Beneke’s company on Breaking Bad to obscure where things are good and where things are bad. By shoving everything under “Cloud” they can absorb things that only cost money, including failed acquisitions like Skype, which….when is the last time anyone used that?



But nobody asks questions of these sorts of things until it falls apart and the dam of investor-oriented propaganda busts open.



Stay tuned.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
 
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day
The Demise of LLMs
We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
Links for the day
Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
Links for the day
Firing Away With Nonsense
Or fighting fire with fire
Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
Links for the day
Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
Neither legal nor useful
The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
And likely in prior years, too
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
Gemini Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025
Plunder at the Second-Largest Institution in Europe
cuts, neglect, health problems, even early deaths
Links 12/07/2025: Political Developments, Attack on Opposition, Climate Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: Melodic Musings and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 12/07/2025: Jail in China for Homoerotica, South Korea Discriminates Against Old Workers
Links for the day
If Only Everything Was Rewritten in Rust, We'd Have No More Security Issues?
Nope.
Links 12/07/2025: Birdwatching and Fake/Misleading Wall Street 'Valuation' Figures
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: How to Avoid Writing, Apps for Android
Links for the day
Using SLAPPs to Cover Up Sexual Abuse and Strangulation
The exact same legal team of the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and Garrett already has a history fighting against "metoo"
EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
slides
Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
"The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025