Instead of having us pay for name change why don't Microsoft just have a 1 year or so thing...

Each GT takes up space on a server which cost money. Changing that data within the system costs money. It's not something that is going to change. Making tag changes free would be very risky and is unlikely to happen.

it's not space, it's also changing things in the database which you never want to do with anything if you can avoid it

When the studios began their initiative for digital movies, they gave away dozens of free ones to ask you to give them a try. Some people found some of the choices to be offensive to them and wanted them removed from their accounts

but there was no mechanism for this just like there isn't here. The solution was allowing Movies to be hidden, just as you can hide a zero gamer score here well it may sound strange, you never know when you have a loadbearing poster that can bring everything crashing down.

I guarantee you there are less gamer tag changes under the current system, then under your proposed one

I don't work for Microsoft so it's not my policy. A lot of it is to deter abuse of name changes which could potentially cause issues. Playstation didn't allow name changes for years and have just recently added it and you have to pay there too.

This is bull if Microsoft comes in and changes ur name they should give u a free name change to change it to something different because I could take this to court because they changed my name and with out my notice I had to call Xbox support to even see
wht happend what's to say these so called efforcers can just go around randomly changing people they don't likes gamer tag this is complete bull now if they give me a free name change this will go away because they can't just go around changing peoples gamertags
so so people have to go out and pay Microsoft money to change it I never had a problem with is I've had the gamer tag for almost a year and I've use it twice I had I changed it and I changed it back the first time I've had the gamer tag I had it for 1 year
and no one said anything this is bs (give me a free name change)

actually it is not against the TOS just not recommended, I have used my first name as my tag for years now. so if the OP wants her name changed she will have to pay the 800 points to do so.