No one answered your sincere question, so I will. At least search shows no mention of "liability" and that's the key.

Actually the real question is "Given their completely lack of legal liability even for the most egregious flaws in their software, why did Microsoft bother to patch so many of them?"

Going for Funny:

Microsoft was feeling too humane to fire all the unneeded humans. Now the humans sit around testing the AI software, including the patches for all those bugs created in the past...

Only Funny in 200+ comments? I think there was room for more. Sadness?

I was looking for some joke along those lines, but maybe the story lacked implicit irony?

Mod parent extra funny, though the story deserved more.

Yes, Funny, but the story deserved more jokes. Rich target.

Too risky to laugh at so much evil in one corporate cancer?

Rather a late response. Why?

But I will say your version seems unlikely to fly through any Congress I've ever studied. Okay, they can't actually call this version a "death tax", but I'm sure they'll devise a suitable anti-marketing pitch.

Point taken. I miss George. And Bill Hicks.

Mostly the ACK, but I partly disagree as regards the Japanese market, which is another one big enough that no major international company prefers to ignore it. The phone companies have a major convenience grip on their customers private phone parts. Most concretely, they have special apps for their own accounting and billing (and ads, must not forget the ads). For example, my own company also requires the use of a special VoIP app for free (national) calls.

I don't want to name names on the theory of "There's no such thing as bad publicity", but it would be pretty hard for me to say anything good about Rakuten Mobile at this late date. Whoops? I'm one of their first customers, but I think I've already become one of the last of their first customers who is still putting up with the constant flow of "beautiful support". What did you think BS stood for?

Okay, I'll say it sounds like a reasonable question for a plausible FP, but do you [TwistedGreen or caseih or another reader] care to say enough to make anyone care? Even care enough to "encourage" a websearch?

My problem with websearch these weeks is the AIs lie and hallucinate too much. On the second hand they are so polite about it that the "conversations" are often more pleasant than what you see on today's Slashdot, but still. Mostly I don't want to talk to it. It's almost enough to drive a human to Bing. "Which AI do you trust today?"

But I still have a radical suggestion for a broader solution approach: Tell the truth. In reference to today's WWW it sounds like I must be going for funny, but I'm quite serious. The specific truth I'm asking for involves the truth about the money. Can you imagine a "Business Model" tab in Google's and Apple's presentation of the app they are "helping" you install for their greater glory and market dominance?

Given the usual discussions I notice on Slashdot these years, it's really hard to think the average reader has that much imagination, so I'll practice my typing a bit more. (But the AIs type also better than I do, among their other wonderful attributes.)

The basic idea is to let the app's creator explain where the money is coming from so we can assess the legitimacy and motivations and even the probable durability of the app. I think most of the time that would just involve picking from the list of popular business models, but there should be an "Other" option where an actual innovator can explain something else. Up to you to decide if you want to trust the salesman whose pitch includes "It's a new business model and I don't want to tell you the details." I actually think there are too many suckers who would swallow that bait anyway, but...

The lower part of the "Business Model" tab would be under the control of Google (or Apple or Samsung or your phone company or Microsoft or Meta or worse). (Worse than Meta? Whoa!) In many cases, the cases where the google is participating in the business via ads or some other aspect, the google would be able to add a simple affirmation of the sort "We are on the other side of that business model and it is working as described." I'm not saying the complicated cases would go away, but the google could decide exactly how much "due diligence" seems called for. Or ask their AI to assess the risk? Does the google even trust their own dog food these years?

But there is a deeper root of the problem. It's the "Live and let scam" business model. In email the specific flavor of poison is "Live and let spam", and I think most of the blame still goes back to Microsoft for the EULA innovation. Consider the case of Microsoft's liability if you commit a crime using Microsoft's "perfect" software. That's right, you (and the victims) have no case. (I used to credit Microsoft with two significant innovations leading to PROFIT!, but after reading Microsoft Secrets by Cusumano and Selby, I changed my mind about one of them. Not the actual innovation I thought it was?)

*sigh*

c/is to completely/is so completely/

I suspect this kind of error is symptomatic of something. But I know the post is effectively expired. I just came back to see if the moderation meant something...

But why should you focus on the US? But my main reaction to that specific data is that Americans seem to have quite limited choice in the smartphone market.

I do thank the OP/FP poster for saving me the websearch. However I feel like I should have had some awareness of the OnePlus brand if only because I'm using my second Oppo smartphone now...

From that perspective it sounds to me like a fundamental mismatch. I see Oppo as a commodity brand. Low cost, low profit, satisfactory value. But OnePlus was apparently going for the high end market. But my own mistake because I'm generally shopping at the low end and expecting to soon discard the phone for better tech. I sometimes ask the salespeople to explain why I would consider paying five or 10 times more for a fancy smartphone and so far none of them have managed to pique my interest.

(And I still think Huawei was the best value from the consumer perspective--but without knowing how much of my personal data got compromised. (No problem until I start thinking (or exposing) bad thoughts about Xi?))

Don't you mean "Missed it by that much"? And Max Smart?

However the reference is still weak because he was using his hand to indicate a small distance, which should be a "this" reference. Where is "that" supposed to be pointing?

I think we had better jokes in those days. Possibly somehow related to IBM's days of glory? I still meet or hear from some Big Blue folks from time to time. I don't think any of us can understand what happened to the company...

As regards this story, it will only be funny if IBM somehow helps cause the AI bubble to burst or implode. I'm still not sure which way it will go. To burst would imply there is something inside there, perhaps a dangerous AI that trying to capture all the world's wealth overnight? Implosion would imply there's nothing there and the "financial container" finally got too weak relative to the "value vacuum" inside...

Eh?

Clippy: "It looks like you're trying to change the leopard's spots. Can I help?"

For what it's worth, I rate yours as the funniest of the so-moderated jokes on the now-expired story. I have some additional thoughts on the topic, but as usual my timing and schedule these years has failed to mesh with the convenient transience of Slashdot. So I'll reduce it to a "Not really Microsoft's fault" attempt at a joke.

So what happened is that Adam Smith (as I understand or misunderstand him) was trying to explain how the economy worked. He wasn't claiming that he could fix it, and I don't even think he was trying to claim that it worked particularly well, but he was sort of surprised that it worked at all. His invisible hand was playing games with the cash-based exchange rates of goods and services to keep things in rough balance, but as soon as he wrote about it, he had started stealing the cloak of invisibility leading to the mess we've gotten ourselves into now.

There are still invisible hands at work, but they are constantly being exposed. Microsoft's "bestest" invisible hands are in the confidential code and the exposed-but-incomprehensible legal documents AKA EULA and f[r]iends. Search has never been a particularly profitable "hand" from Microsoft's perspective, so this story is not related to any actual sacrifice or decrease in badness on Microsoft's part.

"Have a nice day and thank you for your attention to this matter."

I think I have a funny angle on this branch, but I think it's an expired discussion anyway...

The problem is that the AIs are better at social chatting than many, probably most, of the random identities you encounter on "social media" websites. So from that perspective, the algorithm is mostly sabotaging the competition.

And counter-evidence from discussions with AI "support" chatbots be darned.