Microsoft store Vs Apple store
I think part of the benefit of Apple's stores is that they use it as a location for convenient tech support. If people know they can take their Apple devices to a local place, have someone look it over, and explain to them what is going wrong, they will probably stop by. If you already started that part of the project, you might as well also have new Apple devices on hand to show them off and so the user can buy a replacement when the tech support person tells them that their old one is broken.
Meanwhile, I don't know how restrictive Microsoft stores are about tech support. Maybe they're exactly like Apple, but even if they tried, their job is much harder. There is no way a standard Microsoft store employee will have all the diagnostic tools on hand to identify and fix hardware problems in laptops not made by Microsoft, and if they tried to create that capability it would be very expensive. Furthermore, I'm guessing that coming to their store and asking for help wasn't quite as easy as it is for Apple users. I tried to figure out for sure but all their pages have been changed to reflect work from home and the details aren't showing on the wayback machine. Since fewer users are coming for technical support, there are fewer people with broken machines to which replacements can be marketed.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
