Sure to annoy IT people but those just need a line of text while the rest of the screen is free real estate for Micro$oft! Public BSODs tend to go viral too.
This is so cynical and absurd I kind of expect it to happen. Late stage capitalism, yay.
Steve Jobs would have bought that ad space
Alternative universe: In order to pay back Microsoft for saving them from bankruptcy, Apple buys up ad space on Windows BSODs.
Don’t give the motherfuckers ideas.
They are already kinda doing this. The QR code resolves to http://www.windows.com/stopcode, which has a Microsoft 365 ad (who would have guessed?)
Edit: the pic I scanned was old, they have since changed it to “https” to close a trivial MITM attack vector for tech support scam websites.
“Your computer might be fucked or whatever. Maybe do some shit about it. Brought to you by Carl’s Jr. We love you.”
Bummer! You have backups, right? Try OneDrive today!
Upgrade to Windows 11 today!
Or
Microsoft Word has periodic automatic saving!
Are some I could see in a dystopian future
Their most popular page, a goldmine of opportunity.
lol, you might. others might.
i haven’t used windows in decades.
Ah how about GRUB Rescue?
Imagine the incentives tho. It’s free real estate, but how would they sell it to advertisers? “Here’s some ad space, but we work really hard to make sure users see it as rarely as possible.”
But if they do manage to sell it, the dev team then has this wacky incentive to trigger BSODs often enough to hit revenue targets, but rarely enough that they don’t drive away their user base. As another commenter put it, cynical and absurd, but… I mean, there’s a universe where it could happen… hopefully it’s not this one.
The amount of conspiracy theories would be unreal