this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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Microsoft guts Microsoft Rewards points, and its fans are outraged::Microsoft appears to be nickel-and-diming users and fans of its Microsoft Rewards program, which gives "frequent-flyer" points that can be traded in for gift cards.

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[–] ioslife@lemmy.sdf.org 86 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This was the only reason to use Bing for a long time

[–] db2@sopuli.xyz 42 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It still is, but it was too.

[–] beerclue@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.

[–] gekkonaut@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

there are six ducks out there, and they all want sun chips.

[–] ohlaph@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

And Voss, those thirsty bastards.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Bing, uh, has it's uses. IYKYK.

[–] Anomalous_Llama@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Don’t think Bing has been good for that for some years no?

[–] winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 years ago

Pretty sure he's talking about using bing video search for porn.

[–] Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Bing's fine in general. Meanwhile any time I get curious and use Google, if I have to go deeper with anything past the first 2 results, it will be absolute garbage.

[–] 9up999@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

I prefer qwant. Based in France. EU privacy law.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

Works great for me. LOL, tried DuckDuckGo today for giggles, no joy. Even with safe search off, same exact results.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Failed for me, even with Safe Search off. Same results.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago

I see a lot of genitalia with DDG’d search

[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

I remember using this (cheating a little bit with VPNs and proxies so I could claim the rewards like 20 times every day, because they are separate in every country) to get some Xbox giftcards

I also had ~15 Microsoft accounts and I put them all in a Microsoft family so I could transfer points from one account to another, it was really fun lol

[–] RagingInside@lemmy.world 90 points 2 years ago (3 children)

This is why we can't have nice things.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No, this is why systems that aren’t rigorously designed to preclude exploitation like this simply shouldn’t be released. If flaws like this exist in the system, they will be exploited. It’s not on the users if they exploited a flaw, even if you say “please don’t exploit the flaw”.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 3 points 2 years ago

There's a continuum between this kind of thing and, say, ransomware attacks. I'm not sure where the line should be drawn.

[–] Welt@lazysoci.al -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Microsoft Rewards isn't a "nice thing".

[–] DesolateMood@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Idk man I get free game pass every month and people much more patient than me have been able to get entire free consoles. I'd call that pretty nice

[–] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

People like you are why normies can’t buy pax tickets. This isn’t simmering to be proud of, you should be ashamed of abusing a system.

[–] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

For ones where they give you a code for a non-MS service (eg LoL or Overwatch tokens) couldn't you bot-farm this and then literally just sell the redemption code?

[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you actually started selling these, they would probably shut that down pretty quickly and maybe even sue you

[–] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 years ago

Obviously. Don't get caught.

[–] Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago

Meh. This seems relatively minor, and geared towards people purposely gaming it. Which, yeah, I've done at one time or another. Lately I've just been getting the points from searching. It might take a couple extra days to get enough for each $5 gift card. Oh well.

[–] iegod@lemm.ee 7 points 2 years ago

This headline reads like blogTO.

[–] kbtaco@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

I’m most disappointed with the cooldown between searches. The lowering of points was expected as they were cutting back everywhere else.

[–] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 years ago

I mean I've bought 2 Overwatch passes using those points. I couldn't justify paying cash for skins to myself, but MS rewards points I could rationalize. But I basically fire up Edge/Bing to collect the points and then go back to Firefox & DDG. It was obviously not sustainable for them.

[–] FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Bummer, I was going to check this out too

[–] JTskulk@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Let's make a replacement program for Free software. The more points you get, the more Free software you can install.

[–] kurwa@lemmy.world -1 points 2 years ago

That makes the software not free though 😥