Yeah, but that shit was a big deal back then. We were used to having software work for us and not anyone else, so monetizing your eyeballs or attempting to profile you and enforce copyright through the internet was weird and creepy. People lost their shit when they found out Bonzi Buddy and Comet Cursor had spyware. Today's Bonzi Buddy/Comet Cursor is called... well, Windows 11, and no one seems to care.
They're slowly stuffing that shit into updates of Windows 10 too.
and no one seems to care.
I suspect that's largely because of learned helplessness and the bias that search engines and the like seem to have developed. Instead of piles of critical articles about all the worst parts, we get SEO'd sites parroting the same unbearably positive marketing copy about how much "better" Win11 is.