IMHO they would never do that and you're just being naive ;)
Encryption in the browser would mean no targeted ads, less profit for shareholders, problems with the government.
Again IMHO the reality of today is governments and big business are controlled by a very few people, working against the interests of the masses - i.e. a huge conspiracy.
"a company that's supposed to be beholden first and foremost to its users" - it's only supposed to if you're stupid enough to believe the PR talk. Generally Microsoft is as trustworthy as Google and any other big corporation (i.e. not much, when it comes to power struggle - which is what privacy is all about).
Full license, including the name, access to Play, all Google apps is between $10 and $20 per device. The license comes with a very good rate for every online search made from an Android phone or tablet.
Yeah, it's between countries. The same same small group of people owns the majority share in the Fed and controls almost all central banks worldwide. The independent central banks are disappearing one by one - Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan.
You can as well say that flat currencies and fractional reserve banking are modern day pyramid scheme, that disproportionally rewards those participants that have a banking license.
I'm observing quite a few serious regressions in another Microsoft product - Visual Studio 2012, so IMHO this is not completely unlikely to be an accident. On the other side - Steve Ballmer ...
You seem to be forgetting about the billion or so human-made combustion engines, that are easily capable of altering the global climate in a few years.
Or about the tens of thousands of nukes, that can strip the poles of ice caps if properly deployed and again completely change the climate.
Or the probably achievable proposed projects of building solar mirrors or seeding the south oceans with iron.
One can look at the amount of energy humankind was commanding 300 years ago and now, and than extrapolate that to the next 300 years. That power would be enough to move stars around, not talking about a single planet surface fluctuations in gas pressure.