Re:
I believe the view that thinks loyal customers are "outdated audience" is short-sighted. You don't get to treat people who paid you money, who defended you and the product you made online, waited years despite the barren app store like this and expect them to remain loyal to you, regardless of how much money you spent on the product.
Before smartphones, I had a SonyEricsson J20 Hazel feature phone and supported WP even back then. Then I bought a Lumia 520 because I loved WP, and then I upgraded to a 1320. At the same time I got a Surface RT, then upgraded to a Surface 2.
Do you realize that because of the faith I had in Microsoft, I haven't actually worked with the real Instagram app since they first appeared?! Isn't that weird?! All I got through all the smartphone history was this half baked, beta "Instagram" app that became useless in a short while.
My Surface RT and Surface 2 died because of the "razor thin margins" you referred to. All this time, I had to deal with the horrible Xbox Music app that apparently received "updates" that did absolutely nothing and we all know those "updates" were just cheap tricks to create the illusion of support.
We were promised update to Windows 10 and that went out the Window, not that I was going to update my phone to that Android look-alike minus the apps! Still, yet another promise broken. Our services started working better on rival platforms while everything we loved about the design of WP that made it stand out - which ironically is not about Live Tiles - was yanked out of the product, and at the end of the day everyone rightfully declared WP dead.
Isn't it interesting that I am one of the people who spent time and submitted mock-ups for WP 8.1 notification center - ones that you used in one of your articles - and this is now how I feel?
Now be honest with me: isn't the battered wife analogy the brilliantly right one for us who stuck with WP?
Do you realize what you are suggesting is that we should have used common sense to see how Microsoft was screwing things up, and left sooner, so that we wouldn't have become the "outdated audience"?
"Costs and margins" are not good excuses for us. We could've been paid back in interactive toast messages since WP 8.1. We could have been paid back with the ability to share not only our location using SMS, but something as simple as sharing another location using SMS, or an actually usable music player, or a video player that didn't need to check something online before playing our local video file. Or a Store app that doesn't close when there is no internet connection, and lets us install the app from the SD card, throughout the years that we owned Microsoft phones. You know, these small things.It would have been that simple.
Do you think we will come back? or Microsoft will be able to gather any customer base for its mobile platform after this? Do you think I will let them? Of course not. I worked hard to convince people that WP had a better design and they didn't have to overpay to get an iPhone, but obviously no more. Not only is there nothing left to recommend Windows Mobile over the competing platforms, but there is now only hostility left.
That's why I said that view is short-sighted. Microsoft now has a much bigger issue with its reputation, and angry users who are left behind. Already the Microsoft mobile platform is declared dead everywhere; people like me will of course try their best to make sure it stays that way.