Absurdity
Microsoft's $200 Software Is Now $10 and the Guy Who Bought It Last Month Can't Be Reached for Comment
By Jeff Garstein, . BSN Network. Satire.
Microsoft is currently selling Windows 11 Pro, a product it has priced at $199 for years, for $9.97. The deal includes a lifetime license for one PC, which is the software equivalent of a furniture store announcing its going-out-of-business sale and then, when you walk in, the store is completely fine and the couches are just ten dollars.
The offer runs through September 27 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time, because apparently the value of enterprise-grade operating system software fluctuates on a schedule that requires a countdown clock.
To be clear about what $9.97 gets you: a full, permanent installation of Windows 11 Pro. That is less than two dollars more than a medium fountain drink at a movie theater. It is less than a parking ticket in a city that still thinks parking tickets accomplish something. It is, and this is not an exaggeration, four cents cheaper than the large order of nuggets at McDonald's, which at least acknowledges what it is.
Microsoft, for its part, is framing this as consumer generosity rather than a confession. A company representative told press this week that the promotion reflects their "commitment to accessible computing for all users," a sentence that would be moving if the company had not spent the previous decade charging two hundred dollars for the same commitment.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, did not comment directly on the pricing event, but did tell an audience at a recent industry conference that "the future of productivity is about empowering every individual," which appears to mean empowering them with a ten-dollar operating system after the window for paying two hundred dollars has passed.
The sale exists because Windows 10 is being walked toward a door. Microsoft has offered Extended Security Updates to keep Windows 10 users from being completely abandoned, but the company is careful to explain that those updates cover security patches only, not new features, not non-security fixes, and not what they describe as "broader support," which is the kind of phrase a landlord uses right before explaining what the lease actually covered.
In other words: your current operating system will continue to receive just enough attention to prevent it from being actively dangerous, which is also the service level at most DMVs and is similarly described as support.
Several people who purchased Windows 11 Pro at full retail price in recent months have been contacted for comment. None have responded. One, a project manager in Columbus, Ohio who bought a copy in August for $189 through a third-party retailer, was reached by phone. He said "okay" and then was quiet for approximately eleven seconds before asking if there was anything else.
There was not.
For consumers still running Windows 10, Microsoft's recommendation is essentially: please upgrade before October 2025, when extended support ends and your computer begins existing in a kind of digital legal gray area that Microsoft's documentation describes as "end of life," which is technically a phrase for computers but lands differently at two in the morning when you are reading it on the machine in question.
The $9.97 price is real. The $199 price was also real. Both of these things are true simultaneously, and Microsoft would prefer you focus on the part where they are helping you.
The story we are making fun of: https://boingboing.net/2026/09/15/still-hanging-onto-windows-10-windows-11-pro-is-9-97.html