Here's an extraordinary - and extraordinarily depressing - story from Stefano Maffulli about the Comune di Milano (roughly the Milan city council) pushing to its citizens some free services from Microsoft for, er, free...
When will governments finally learn their lessons about 'free' (gratis) Microsoft offers? They merely acts as agents of monopolisation. ⬆
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
They typically source their money from aboard to besiege domestic actors (like honest journalists or independent outlets that document suppressed beats/topics)
I did not envision myself spending several years (even 4 years after leaving that company) challenging the system for tolerating and even covering up corruption