Every PC I've ever owned has had some version of vi installed on it pretty much on day one of my owning it.
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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Fucking click bait garbage article, but thankfully the article has a tldr at the top that basically contradicts the headline and saves you minutes of time to realize you've been baited;
TL;DR: Microsoft has introduced a paywall for Notepad, requiring a Microsoft 365 subscription to access new features like the AI-powered Rewrite tool.
Better headline: Microsoft forces you to pay to suffer through using their AI tool that no one asked for, application otherwise unchanged.
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They could've added this to wordpad if they didn't kill it.
It should be noted that you can still use Notepad without a Microsoft account, and users can go as far as removing the Rewrite icon completely from Notepad. Despite the ability to still use the software without an account, Microsoft has received some criticism for implementing what is most definitely a paywall/advertisement for a built-in piece of Windows software.
I don't think it's ragebait/clickbait. I think it's really problematic that just a simple text editor get this bad by enshittification.
Sounds like they're slipping cloud based AI assistance into the deal, which is the opposite of what Notepad is "good" for.
Gotta squeeze every single cent from every single opportunity, otherwise line might not go up indefinitely.
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The title is quite sensational compared to the content. They only added an AI Rewrite feature for notepad that requires a Microsoft 365 subscription. Considering the cost of AI, and the fact that it will very probably run in the cloud, it is very reasonable that it isn't free. Everything else about notepad remains free / included with the price you paid for the OS.
They give Copilot out for free so it’s weird that they’re charging for the Notepad AI feature.
Hell, just copy and paste the content into Copilot and ask it to rewrite it, I bet it’ll just be doing the same thing but for free.
I agree, but the idea of adding AI to notepad is quite insane in its own right
Why? I mean, one of the main features of generative AI systems is to generate text (the quality of which I won’t get into), why not add this to something like Notepad. I agree that Notepad should be thought of as a lightweight, well, notepad, but still might be useful as a quicker alternative to Word.
The fact that Microsoft is trying to shove Copilot down our throats at every possible step is idiotic, I agree, but having an AI as part of a notes app doesn’t seem too weird.
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And around 20 years ago I did go all-in Linux.
Good thing whenever I set up Windows, Notepad is one of the things I nuke, using Geany to replace it.
This is a bad sign if MS gets emboldened and starts paywalling basic OS functionality at some point in the future, though.
Geany FTW!
People at Microsoft doesn't understand what people use Notepad for.
If they wanted to add AI features, they should have added it to WordPad, and make it more modern / add some useful functions.
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Used only in cases where everything else is not readily available... Pencil, pen, blood, boogers etc. But the most easily replaceable piece of software. Literally you could just paste into a browser's URL box to do the same job. Lol. There must be some dumb fuck heading Microsoft right now.
So... who wants to bet that the new version of Notepad is not constantly scraping anything you type into it and feeding it into the AI, regardless of whether you're paying for this feature or not?
Tbf, they already control the os itself. They already have access to all of the keystrokes. Implementing it just in notepad feels like a rube goldbergy way of scraping user data.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple does something like this too at some point in the future