Don't even consider starting with Microsoft
lionelbarrow.substack.comIt's a little odd to complain about infrastructure (SPS, EX) then go discuss UX (Outlook) as some sort of example of said infra (?!?) and then go to discuss _cloud only features that never existed on-prem_ (M365 Groups).
Before complaining, learn.
My point is that with Google I don't have to learn any of this, it just works logically out of the box. Compare that to Microsoft, where I have to understand the history of their on-prem vs cloud products in order to know the right way to make a distribution list. Forcing this complexity onto users when it's irrelevant to the task they're trying to accomplish is bad design.
There are millions of people who use Microsoft products as an end user who have no idea where or how their email or files are hosted.
You don't have to understand the backend to use their tooling.
Maybe you should learn that these things are not as easily removed from each other as you imply.
Outlook == Exchange == O365; in the same way Gmail == Web & Service.
Complaints about the ecosystem of products (that incentivise their use and in some cases aggressively lock other tools out!) are all valid when complaining about an ecosystem.
Only pedantry need delineate them from each other, they're inextricably linked.
Outlook is not equal to Exchange. One can use other mail clients if they choose to do so (such as Apple Mail...).
Outlook also comes in a few different varieties which are oddly not the same.
have you ever worked in any company that uses exchange that does not also (pretty much) mandate outlook?