> If you aren't paying for Windows (Facebook, Twitter, whatever, etc.) then you're what's being sold ...

The trouble is, given the history on record, that Microsoft can't be trusted. So even if you pay, how can you know they aren't collecting?

The only way to check I can think of is to pay, spend a year doing one kind of thing, then start doing something completely different and opt in. Then see whether the ads which arrive are related to what you were doing while opted out.

>There aint no such thing as a free lunch.

But you can imagine it. I always wandered what would that thing be, except being such (as a free lunch). I've been over this phrase a few times, and it still doesn't make sense to me. I guess RAH met PKD those days, and they may have shared a pill or two.