People keep acting like normal people can't use Linux, but that hasn't been true in more than ten years. Just have them start with something like Debian or Mint rather than something like Arch or Gentoo.
No platform is perfect but I'd argue that desktop Linux still has far more many rough edges to contend with when something goes wrong. There are way too many problems for which "well just open the terminal and..." is the only solution.
The Windows equivalent solution is "open the registry editor and...", or worse, there isn't one, because the first person to fix it is going to need some technical competence and 36 hours if they have access to the source code, but if it's open source someone does it and posts the solution on the internet, whereas it would take a thousand hours without the source code, and then it's just an unresolved question on the Microsoft site with several other users saying "did anyone find a solution?" and no one saying yes. Or worse even still, you get a list of 50 wrong solutions none of which actually work because Microsoft doesn't want it fixed and keeps breaking it on purpose every time someone posts a workaround.
Meanwhile when the Linux solution is to open the terminal and type the thing, and you open the terminal and type the thing, it actually fixes the problem.
If someone can fix Windows problems by looking it up on the internet, they can fix Linux problems by looking it up on the internet. If they can't, they were going to call you anyway. Or worse, call the vendor and get snookered into an upsell. Or worse yet, call some random "Windows Support" number and give up their payment info.
Are we all such jerks that we can't spend a few hours a year talking to our families and instead have to subject them to the ravages of whatever scammer's blogspam SEOs itself to the first page of Google?
If the PC store downtown is staffed by nerds, they'll be able to fix Linux problems just as well. If they're staffed by corporate "sales associates" the only problem they're capable of resolving is if your wallet is too heavy.
WSL is how Microsoft gets corporate software developers to tolerate Windows after being forced to use it by their employer. It provides nothing to home users who want the ads out of the start menu.
Hopefully Tim’s exit soon will bring some fresh perspective at Apple where designers and engineers are given a driving seat and not the shareholders.
Apple can do a 180 here and completely take over windows market share. They just need to stop making useless changes and stop with planned obsolescence when people literally are looking to switch.
Sometimes you need to pay the people who made the software. You can't steal during all your life. At some point you have to pay the others for the work they did.
Nobody is saying don't pay your developers. Just that VC funding creates perverse incentives within your business where you are pressured to do what is best for your investors, rather than your customers. But there are other business models where one can earn money and still pay the people working on the product.
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