That doesn’t happen.
You’re free to use your documents folder as much as you want, it’s still local to your disk / filesystem. Without available space in the cloud storage plan, those items won’t upload to the cloud and will have a red X as their status icon.
That happened because you unlinked OneDrive 6 months ago, or it deauthenticated and was never signed back in. Without being connected, it never got the memo that those files were removed so it never deleted those things from there.
The same thing would happen if you uninstalled any other program and then deleted the now local-only files, or if you restored from a 6 months old backup.
I think OneDrive is just fine.
I primarily use it for my Windows PCs, I have it installed on my Macs. Rarely need anything in there from Linux, but it’s nice to be able to pop in from a browser and grab something.
I work in an IT Support role for a lot of users, and I think that OneDrive is the ideal backup for the average Windows user / basic consumer. It covers the folders that most people care about, offers versioning of files, and even ensures that I’m not needed when they transition to a new device even if their previous device does not turn on anymore.
In the US, Dropbox’s cost of entry is $120/$144 per year depending on whether or not you go month to month. The majority of users don’t need a 2TB storage plan.
OneDrive starts at $20/$24 for 100GB, $70/$84 for a 1TB plan, or $100/$120 for a 6-user family plan that totals 6TB.
Reminds me of “And Yet It Moves”
I haven’t found that it comes back on its own after being uninstalled but I also deliberately have it on all my daily drivers, so it’s possible that’s happening with the annual feature updates.
In notification settings, there are two options that use the “welcome experience” and “tips / tricks” language - disabling those does away with a lot of the fullscreen subscription solicitations.
A lot of average users do benefit from being asked to opt in once or twice, but I agree there ought to be a more accessible “no thanks, never ask me again” option for power users.
I also wish that stuff was scaled back or stripped out of the professional editions of Windows, LTSC editions don’t have it but the license requirements don’t make that a particularly accessible option.
Linux is definitely the right move, it brings me great joy to see more and more folks discovering that as an option that is bot only viable, but also better. I hope to see Windows 10’s EOL become “the great Linuxing”