Microsoft is currently robbing Canadians.
Every year, they are overcharging the Federal Government, Provinces, Cities, Universities, Hospitals and Small Business owners for the right to use Microsoft Office. They make 40% margins. It’s absolutely disgusting.
Microsoft has basically managed to tax every single Canadian.
If you go to a Canadian University, whether you like it or not, you are paying the Microsoft tax. Because your tuition is paying Microsoft. If you pay provincial taxes, you pay the Microsoft Tax. Whether you like it or not, the provinces are paying Microsoft. If you go buy food at the supermarket, whether you like it or not, you are paying the Microsoft tax. Because Canadian supermarket companies are paying Microsoft. You want to buy a bus ticket ? You are paying Microsoft. The Bus company is paying Microsoft.
It’s parasitism. Microsoft is a parasite that feeds on the Canadian economy.
I now use Libre Office.
👉 https://www.libreoffice.org/
It’s a wonderful alternative to Microsoft Office. It’s free, secure, and developed by a non-profit organization that I financially support. I urge people to switch to Libre Office instead of Word/Excel/PowerPoint.
After a few days, you quickly get used to it. Then you just wonder "Why we are all paying Microsoft so much money in the first place?".
We need Canadian institutions, small and big, to do the same. Stop paying the Microsoft tax. Fight the Parasite.
Don’t forget to stop using your credit cards! They’re all American an take a percent of all transactions.
Are there no Canadian financial institutions capable of launching their own cards and payment processors? That seems like a pretty big issue if the US is still skimming money off of each Buy Canadian purchase made by any medium other than cash.
All the Canadian banks should start a joint venture for a Canadian credit card.
The banks do take a hefty cut of that transaction fee, and visa/mastercard get a smaller cut. But that’s still a lot of money going to the US for no reason.
We do have Interac here in Canada which charges a few cents instead of a percent, and it’s Canadian.
I’m going to take a slightly more nuanced take on this as someone who works in the enterprise software ecosystem.
Microsoft doesn’t just sell office to the government or university anymore. Their Microsoft 365 subscriptions include e-mail, office, intranets, communications, security, collaboration tools, and even more.
You can replace the office part with Libre Office no issues, and for home use I would absolutely recommend that instead of paying for a Microsoft license, but the moment you need to start building your own e-mail servers, file sharing systems, getting software for messaging and video calls, etc. the price (software, hardware, maintenance, tech support) goes up to well above what Microsoft charges.
Unfortunately, Microsoft provides decent value.
I’d love to see a non-American competitor that offers such a comprehensive business package, but there isn’t even a realistic American competitor at this point, Google is the closest with Google Docs/Sheets, Gmail, Google Meet, Google Drive but having used it extensively it’s still falls short of what Microsoft is doing and of course it’s also American.
If you need to sign up to 6 different companies to get the same functionality coverage it’s never going to be as integrated, as easy to use, or as cheap.
It’s really unfortunate, but this is completely true. Microsoft has a virtual monopoly on the integrated business suite, and between cost and ease of use, nobody else, nor any combination of competitors, is even close.
Many of the things you listed are available as free software through opensource projects. Microsoft just bundles it all making it easy.
And runs the server required stuff on their own hardware.
I mentioned this in my comment.
Which is cheap. You can run a lot on a pi these days. Or setup a higher powered nuc. MS chargers for server and now named user licenses.
You can not run enterprise business functions on a pi unless your “enterprise” is made up of a single user.
Even something like basic video steaming for internal training videos would kill it due to encoding issues. Let alone the impact from one service affecting others like a user file transfer affecting the speed of messaging or email, or a complex database activity momentarily taking out your task management application.
You would need a dozen of them for splitting services and redundancy, then a UPS and redundant internet connections. It would end up costing you a few thousand dollars just in hardware before you even started paying someone to set it up and keep it running.
We selfhost a lot for work. Was paid services before but cost kept creeping up. Companies have IT anyway, so it is really not a huge expense to manage your own services.
Linux/libre-software user since 2006. Stop funding this hostile foreign power. It is in Canadians best interest to get out from under the autocratic techno-elite paradigm. Embrace freedom, leave your serfdom behind.
I dual boot Linux and haven’t touched my Windows partition since this all began.
My small form of protest haha. And you’re right, Libre Office is sufficient for my needs.
"That’s the kind of disruption we would never expect,” said Hung.
Who could have seen that coming ?
“I never heard of this happening until now. It’s definitely quite a bit of headwinds.”
Maybe pull your head all the way out of your ass.
Every time I see American news about Canada, it is striking how they are so completely clueless about how infuriated the Canadians have been with the US lately.
This isn’t just one of the usual quarrels we have with them from time to time. This is an existential threat. Canadians are kept awake wondering if they’ll have to wage guerrilla warfare against an invader in their future. All of this because the spoiled rich toddler the Americans have elected has decided that he is entitled to Canada.
I have never once in my life thought about owning a gun. I hated the idea of ever having one in my home. Now I’m kind of wondering if I should get one in the event the US does invade…
I can see the difference in my pantry versus what is on the grocery store shelves today. Tins that used to proudly state Product of USA Imported by some company in Mississauga ON, now only mentions the importer and hides the country of origin. Evidently many American companies are ashamed to be associated with their own country.
For me, a product with no clear country of origin goes back on the shelf. If I’m not sure where it’s a product of and there’s a possibility of it being American, I’m not buying.
Evidently many American companies are ashamed to be associated with their own country.
That’s editorializing. Companies want to make as much money as possible, and right now hiding their US origin increases sales.
AliExpress is my new Amazon.
