Their products/services are ubiquitous not because they are good but because they got where they are today by abusing monopoly power and shady tactics.

On the business side, with M365, they use lock-in tactics and extremely aggressive bundle pricing. The only competitor is Google Workspace, and it's missing features you get bundled with something like an E5 license. So your choice becomes: just pay Microsoft $60/user/month and get Identity, Office, Intranet, MDM, EDR, DLP, ZTNA, the works. Or, buy Google Workspace and then also buy Slack, Okta, JamF (or Jumpcloud or similar), some ZTNA product, etc. and you are now at double or more the price of an E5 license.

On the consumer side with Windows, they secured their monopoly via internet explorer, and predatory OEM contracts to prevent machines being sold with anything else. Now Windows is just an ad-delivery network disguised as an OS. People don't leave Windows because its still, through those shady backroom deals, the default OS on every off the shelf PC, and because of existing software.

Microsoft has zero incentive to build a good product now, they already won. People use it because they have to not because they want to.

I suppose the argument is in reverse. They are so ubiquitous, they don’t really have to be good anymore to capture the market.

>considering everyone is using MS software one way or another.

I don't think I've used a MS product in at least a decade. At least that I was aware of.

Edit: did some research and I have used LinkedIn. Other than that, nothing.

Product quality has nothing to do with ubiquity. Its all about shady business deals that locks you into products where the migration cost is much higher.

Microsoft products are no longer ubiquitous. That's an early 2010s view. In 2026 most clients are running Android, followed by iOS, followed by Mac, and use Google Docs for their office work. Windows is only used on a per-company basis. If your company uses it it uses it, otherwise it doesn't.

> ... considering everyone is using MS software one way or another.

This used to be the case when Apple was in dire straits and MS abused their monopoly position to gain 95% of browsers market share. Grim days.

But those days are thankfully long done and there are plenty of people who are completely Microsoft-free.

The one thing people are using one way or another is Linux, because it's now in just about everything. Even those in the Apple ecosystem, with an iPhone and Mac computers, very probably have a Linux router and Linux TV at home.

The number of devices in the world running one version of Linux or another outnumber Windows devices by something like 10 to 1. Maybe more.

Microsoft is a despicable company producing turds since forever. I hate them and the crap they produce with a passion since the DOS days.

As the saying goes: the day Microsoft shall produce something that doesn't suck is the day they'll start selling vacuum cleaners.

They're ubiquitous because everyone else fucked up during the 80's and 90's charging too much for everything. MS was affordable. It's really just Apple gaining economy of scale by manufacturing in China and Linux being free while being higher quality that make MS look bad.

Also MS stuff has always been slop. Hate their business practices too. But without Linux we'd be choosing between MS, Apple and Oracle Solaris or something...