The subscription thing sounds like a similar sort of thing to what they've operated for a while with features on the Xbox, and they've just moved it into PC. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner tbh. And the privacy? Pretty sure most products (from Google, Microsoft, Android) operate fairly similar shit anyway, so while it's a bugger, unless we're mega careful around everything we do we're subject to it regardless.
Windows 7 is fine for my purposes - I wound up regressing back to 7 after my computer fecked up last time on 8.1. While 10 does look like a step up from 8 (Sakura Clicker is a step up from 8 to be honest) it wouldn't surprise me if they're forcing suggesting it on people simply due to complete lost confidence in upgrades.