Your last sentence betrays your ire. This isn’t about Microsoft it’s about Windows and software licensing, I’m on board with you on the subscription service crap.
As far as identity goes, which has been my field for 30 years, passwordless is the future and it’s about damn time we’re here. We’ve been fighting passwords since at least 2008, if not earlier, because they’re ALWAYS the first vector of attack for threat actors.
Microsoft isn’t the only entity doing this. Passkeys are available across a lot of financial institutions, government agencies, education establishments, and industrial areas. They are helping to secure environments against the most prevalent threat to any entity: garbage passwords and lazy users.
“This isn’t about Microsoft it’s about Windows and software licensing.”
And they both suck and borderline on Criminal business practice. :)
If it is my machine and I have to pay to get it fixed then it is my problem. I can break it if I want to, it is SUPPOSED to be MINE. It should belong to me not perpetually to Microsoft...