Ka-pi96 said:
Still, there's literally no option to buy cheaper OS free computers and I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case in the rest of the world too. I also doubt many computer owners in 3rd world countries are custom building their own computers. So having to pay for Windows isn't an extra cost or anything. |
There doesn't seem to be any info available for Windows 10, but in 2015, Windows 8.1 cost either $0 or $15 for tablets. Because of Windows's small marketshare in tablets, it would seem plausible that pricing there is more aggressive than it is in the case of computers. There doesn't seem to be more recent data available on how much Windows costs for computers, but in 2012, Windows 8 Pro + Office 2013 cost between $80 and $100. Obviously that information is no longer-up-to-date, but it might give a hint as to how much computer makers have to pay for each copy of Windows. That's definitely not a negligible sum, so I would expect that price to at least partially translate into the final price of each computer as well. Whether the lack of competition really counts as not being an extra cost or not is pretty much semantics, because essentially computers could be much cheaper if there was more competition in the OS market.
