We Are Safe in a Modern "Tech" Society, Right?
Modern "Tech" became a bit of an insult. The term "modern" when used in some circles is demeaning; it's not meant to sound like a compliment. Tech with big T isn't technology, some precede it with "Big" (like Big Oil), just like Science with a big S is meant to make science seem like a religion, a cult, a brand, a dogma.
What we've been witnessing in recent decades, not years, is gradual weaponisation of existing technology, wrapped up in foolish marketing terms like "the cloud" (that typically means you hand over all your data to some large company that's based far away and works for hostile interests; computation, data, everything... not under your own control). In Microsoft, this has just been taken up a notch; just as Vista 10 "cuts the rope" this happens:
Alternatives to that do exist. See the new article "Microsoft’s Local Accounts Crackdown Is Yet Another Reason to Switch to Linux".
For many of us out there in the Free (libre) world "modern" means "new in a bad way". It's something to turn down, even if they make it harder for people to turn down.
If many people are pressured/forced to do something, and eventually many of them do, does that mean this something is right or inevitable?
No.
People are safer if they control their own computing, not if they outsource it to malicious corporations that seek to increase their own revenue and sponsor dictators. █