If you don't like their product or policies, don't use it. If you use it then you should pay for it.
This strikes me as a valid ethical position, though I happen to think things are more complicated than that.
People who pirate Microsoft products don't really hurt Microsoft, they hurt the rest of the competition.
This, on the other hand, doesn't make sense. You seem to be assuming that the invariant is that the user will not be paying Microsoft. And that might be true for you. If you're not going to be sending any money to MS no matter what, then yes, using MS products helps them somewhat.
For the author of the article, however, the invariant is that he will be using MS products. Since he's going to be using their products in any case, when he is fed up with their policies and decides to pirate instead of purchase until they get fixed, of course this hurts them.
If you want to argue that nothing is invariant, and that the best way to hurt MS is to both stop purchasing and stop using, well, of course that's true, but it's not relevant. What the author is talking about is simply stopping paying for something until it gets fixed; whether he still uses it or not is of very minor importance to MS next to whether or not he pays for it. His goal isn't to destroy MS or make them irrelevant; on the contrary, he just wants a better customer experience.
> whether he still uses it or not is of very minor importance to MS next to whether or not he pays for it.
What's more important than whether he pays for it is whether everybody else will still pay for it.
If everyone around you use Windows, you probably have to still use Windows in order to be able to collaborate with them. And you don't even have to think about open standard.
The more people around you use other OS, the more you are likely to think about using platform-independent technology. Then the more likely you are to be able to move to other platform since there are less and less fraction of people holding you on Windows.
The author using Windows gives everyone around him the inertia of moving to other platform. He is part of the reason why most people knows how to use only Windows.
And then when big company wants to buy a platform they will chose Windows because most people use it. And big company will pay. And big company will buy more expensive software and extra support.
This strikes me as a valid ethical position, though I happen to think things are more complicated than that.
People who pirate Microsoft products don't really hurt Microsoft, they hurt the rest of the competition.
This, on the other hand, doesn't make sense. You seem to be assuming that the invariant is that the user will not be paying Microsoft. And that might be true for you. If you're not going to be sending any money to MS no matter what, then yes, using MS products helps them somewhat.
For the author of the article, however, the invariant is that he will be using MS products. Since he's going to be using their products in any case, when he is fed up with their policies and decides to pirate instead of purchase until they get fixed, of course this hurts them.
If you want to argue that nothing is invariant, and that the best way to hurt MS is to both stop purchasing and stop using, well, of course that's true, but it's not relevant. What the author is talking about is simply stopping paying for something until it gets fixed; whether he still uses it or not is of very minor importance to MS next to whether or not he pays for it. His goal isn't to destroy MS or make them irrelevant; on the contrary, he just wants a better customer experience.