That's been something I don't get. Someone at Microsoft must be aware that they've completely killed user excitement for new features over the last 10 or so years by pushing them relentlessly, the features mostly not being strictly a good deal for the users and them being hard to disable and even coming back after you've explicitly denied consent.

Surely that isn't good for MS in the long term? Having a userbase that likes using your product must be better for business than a userbase that has been taught to be wary of anything you do, and to dismiss anything you come out with based on previous "features".

Is it the typical hacker news theory of management looking for short term user number growth to get promoted, or something else entirely?

When apple releases features, most of their userbase is excited. They have learned that in most cases it's either something cool they can use straight away or an optional service that they might or might not need. Apple still does some annoyances to push their services, but not nearly as bad as MS.