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 9 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] db2@sopuli.xyz 42 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It still is, but it was too.

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

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

[–] gekkonaut@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] ohlaph@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

And Voss, those thirsty bastards.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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

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

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

[–] winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 9 months ago

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

[–] Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months 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 9 months ago

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

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months 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 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 months ago

I see a lot of genitalia with DDG’d search

[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 25 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months 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 9 months ago (3 children)

This is why we can't have nice things.

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 29 points 9 months ago

I mean in their defense, fuck Microsoft with a rusty nail, and this system was basically designed for exploitation.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months 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 9 months 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 9 months ago (1 children)

Microsoft Rewards isn't a "nice thing".

[–] DesolateMood@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months 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 9 months 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 9 months 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 9 months 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 9 months ago

Obviously. Don't get caught.

[–] Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months 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 9 months ago

This headline reads like blogTO.

[–] kbtaco@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months 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 9 months 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 9 months ago

Bummer, I was going to check this out too

[–] JTskulk@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months 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 9 months ago

That makes the software not free though 😥