"The timing is notable, as the announcement comes alongside Microsoft’s quarterly financial report, which showed a continued decline in the business of selling Windows licenses for new PCs."

Several factors come together. For me, Spy-Recall was the dealbreaker. I can not use an operating system that constantly reports to the USA what I am doing. But the increase in RAM prices also means that I fail to see why I should overpay now due to greedy US AI corporations. These corporations all us folks money here. It is like a racket. This is not a "free market" either, since it is so heavily skewed in favour of corporations. The whole idea about capitalism, which the USA once claimed to worship before selling out to the TechBros, has been that free market competition leads to lower prices. Right now we see collusion, a mafia - why the TechBros aren't in jail already beats me. Too much financial kickbacks into the judicial system.