“Microsoft has ended 40 years of single-occupancy for Excel cells and is now allowing multiple values to inhabit the same home. For the time being, this capability is only available in Microsoft Excel for Windows and Mac Beta Channels. And it is opt-in.”
Which is exactly what Microsoft was accused of doing many years ago when they brought out their OOXML standard and punted it as a global standard. Very few fell for that as ODF was already the open document standard, and not owned by any corporation. But they would keep tinkering with things behind the scenes so that if anyone tried to use OOXML, it would still break in practice as features were not supported. This would happen a lot with MS Word where especially all the formatting and layout would often not be the same.
I remember this happening with a South African charity who had to provide business plans to a Department of Social Development. Being a charity, and not having unlimited taxpayer funds, that charity was using a free alternative called OpenOffice, and working in ODF format (which by the way, was the only officially approved document format for that government), but the business plan’s template did not load as the Department had designed it using MS Word. Did the Department redesign it into the compliant standard? No, they told the charity to go and buy MS Word!
This was why open document standards were created, and also approved by many governments around the world. It was to reduce the cost of ownership (can use the free software), and to improve interoperability and freedoms of choice.
The correct way to do it, is to propose the change to the standards body, and get it voted on or amended, and then it goes live after approval, giving all other providers a chance to implement it as well so that compatibility works.
It just goes to show that Microsoft still acts the same underneath, despite the PR. It is probably not going to bother me really in 2026, as I’d just respond that the spreadsheet is broken. What bothers me more is Microsoft’s attitude and approach to changes like this. Certainly, there could be some good reason for going with this change, but then let’s do that process correctly and be good neighbours to each other.