Even if for now the stats (e.g. steam hardware survey), show only a slight increase in Linux users (and a lot of them could be dual booting)
I should have a valid license for windows, my Win 8 Pro license (which I paid full price for, like $150) should have worked for Windows 10 (and then transfered to 11) but it's not working anymore for whatever reason, I probably upgraded without disabling the key somewhere or whatever. So when I use Windows I have that "activation required" nag watermark now. When microsoft finally remotely kills my unactivated windows 10 install (a week from now? 6 months?) I'm just not going back. The only reason I dual boot these days is fusion 360 CAD and there's a steam install on there so it's probably showing up as a windows install even though I haven't played games on there in probably years.
Windows will probably continue on forever simply due to inertia but this "you have to have a web login to use your private computer" b.s. is going to turn off a lot of consumers, and this will be the watershed moment where Proton/Wine finally moves from 5, to 10 or 15% of users
Cloud-based profit. The "computer user" model is dead.
They very likely foresee the demise of PC as a platform altogether and are trying their best to shepherd us into their other products.
This is also just for activation which is not required to use Windows 11. I don't understand the extreme reactions to this. This isn't 2001 anymore.
This functionality was taken for granted 30+ years ago!
and you will like it. so says MS.
Consider what our industry will look like once the surveillance as a service/enshittifcation that’s been implemented for windows is ported to those things.
Try switching away from the services I mentioned, and you’ll see why the strategy makes sense.