The minute Microsoft makes it so that you can only use their OS at home from a cloud account is the day I stop having Windows OS on one of my computers. Most now have Linux, but there are a few applications that won’t run on Linux (tax preparation software being one example).
Why would you not just run the tax software under Wine in Linux?
That will never happen. Microsoft 365 personal (1 user, 5 devices, 1TB cloud storage that can be set up as a real-time backup or the easiest way to copy local files to all other devices) CAD $7.99/month + tax. For a family it’s just CAD $9.99/month (same package for up to 5 or 6 users, can’t remember). Additionally you get all of Microsoft Office Professional (including every new version upgrade) for every device and user. Last time I checked Office Home was $200 outright (before Microsoft 365) while Pro was $400 with upgrade pricing quite a bit cheaper. Both are still available but if you run the numbers you’ll find that the subscription is cheaper and pays off in less than two years.
Using the 365 model, Windows will continue to be both cheap and user-owned because the hardware vendor pays Microsoft <$ 100 and builds in into the price with Windows pre-installed. As a bonus, I paid nothing for my version since I got a copy of Windows 8 for cheap from an Amazon vendor; I’ve used the same licence every time I rebuilt my desktop because there’s a simple way to move Windows to a new device to a different PC with a simple search of the official Windows website.
Using the Microsoft 365 model, I suspect that Microsofts long-term goal is to continue selling it cheap but not free, because giving it away for free would become a threat to Apple, linux, Google and whatever comes next. Bill Gates doesn’t want any of them to go away because he understands that a rising tide lifts every boat in the water, IOW everyone gets richer including the consumer who gets more value for his money.