Microsoft appears to be testing a new type of ad inside File Explorer on Windows 11. Microsoft MVP and Twitter user Florian Beaubois discovered an ad in the latest test build of Windows 11, prompting users to check out the Microsoft Editor. While the ads might have appeared for some Windows 11 users, Microsoft says it was a mistake.
“This was an experimental banner that was not intended to be published externally and was turned off,” says Brandon LeBlanc, senior program manager for Windows, in a statement to The Verge.
Almost every week there’s a news story about something plain dreadful happening to Windows users, and this is just the latest in a long string of ads Microsoft is plastering all over its operating system. I really don’t understand how users just accept this – they sit back, get bombarded with ads in their operating system, and just… Accept it.
Baffling.
It’s not even the first time they’ve done it; there were ads for OneDrive baked into the file manager on Windows 10 a while back. They were not well received either.
I will continue to enjoy not participating in the Windows 11 Beta.
I really believe Microsoft has realized the price of the operating system is approaching zero. Linux is free, Apple doesn’t ask you to pay for operating systems. So they have to figure out how to offset the revenue from people purchasing OS licenses and the obvious answer is … ads. I haven’t personally owned a computer running Windows since 2017 and couldn’t be happier.
Fuck Microsoft.
Even with just 1% of desktop marketshare, Linux is kind of a monster that lies on the shadows, making loud noises once a while to remind you that it’s there and will eat you the first chance that he gets.
Microsoft know that all too well: Linux obliterated their dreams to have Windows Server be the inheritor of UNIX in early 21 century and become the work horse of the internet, wiped out Windows on embedded environments, and crushed their mobile dreams.
So the real problem with Windows profitability is: they are afraid. They fear that if they go hard to the same business model of charging 300 dollars or more of anyone that wants to upgrade, they’re doomed. Their license costs is virtually the same since Vista era without even adjusting for inflation!! For a while they offset that with OEM licenses bundled on hardware sales, but now fewer and fewer people upgrades their PC with frequency and even developing markets short of Africa are getting saturated leaving little room for growth.
Two of my systems are telling that “I can upgrade to Windows 11”.
If this was any other release, I would be more than happy to be an early adopter. I remember playing with Windows Longhorn early builds on my main desktop.
But, today, I feel very disinclined to even try it out on a virtual machine.
If you don’t want to be upgraded by accident you should disable the TPM.
smashIt,
But I actually use the TPM for disk encryption. Yes it is not as secure as entering a password, but better than not having anything.
Microsoft Solitaire is an abomination nowadays. ♂️
ReactOS have a very passable clone of the classic WinXP version
The123king,
Haha, what a funny scenario that would be: Windows users opting for reactos components over microsoft’s.
I think it’s more likely that people will look for ways to hack out the microsoft antifeatures like they’ve done in many other instances.
Often, filenames and/or contents are specific for a folder; so I guess advertisement inside Explorer could be made context specific… Targeted ads all over the place in your Windows operating system is the future.
evert,
Yeah, they could plaster ads across everything. It’s only a matter of time before desktop wallpaper. becomes an ad. Anyone remember the adware that infected links in browsers? Well now it could be an official feature built into the OS.
Advertising could become more integrated. An advertiser might pay microsoft to retheme the desktop when users visit their websites, maybe even unlocking OS minigames. That kind of gimmick would get an advertiser a lot of eyeballs and clicks when everyone tries to see what the fuss is about.
Does anyone want a future with even more ads? No, but money talks.
For Windows, that’s “filenames and\or contents”
I can explain: People don’t buy operating systems, they buy computers. They don’t buy Windows, they buy Windows PCs. For most people, the OS is something that makes their hardware run. Which is the problem with Desktop Linux: It might run your hardware, but there is no guarantee it will. I posted a comment on the PipeWire article yesterday that there is an open bug for E-AC3 not being bitstreamed that’s open for 5 months. I mean, wow (E-AC3 is a mandatory codec for viewing TV in France and Austria btw). Then there are problems with WiFi, Optimus, power management, suspend and whatnot. You can’t expect users to deal with that stuff. They bought the hardware, they expect it to work. That’s priority #1. On Windows, it’s someone’s job to make sure they work. I don’t care what hacks they use to make things work, but it does. Linux people just blame others for not being GPL-compatible, for not putting their drivers in the tree, and generally just blame people, as if this solves anything. Hard pass. It’s the reason initiatives like Dellbuntu went nowhere. The return rates for Dellbuntus were 4 times higher than Windows PCs.
And then there are other problems related to Desktop Linux like encouraging users to use the repos as a way to get their software but not always having the latest versions of apps in there and providing no way to ship proprietary software via them.
So, the choice gets narrowed between Windows PCs and Macs. People who can afford a Mac and have no entanglements to Windows will buy a Mac, the rest will use Windows PCs.
kurkosdr,
Obviously it sucks for users when hardware isn’t supported by their OS, but this has more to do with market share than anything else. My uncle faced this exact same problem with chromebook and a printer he bought. He expectated it would work, but he was wrong. A lot of hardware isn’t compatible with Macs either. Heck even with windows sometimes compatibility is limited to specific versions. I’ve had to throw away lots of “windows compatible” hardware on the basis of no longer being compatible with current versions of windows.
When I see complaints about linux not supporting random hardware, I think we have to hold users more accountable for buying hardware blindlywithout even checking that it’s supported first. That’s a bad way to experience linux. It’s not linux’s fault that hardware X won’t work any more than it is BSD’s fault, or Mac’s fault, or MorphOS’s fault, etc. Sure you want hardware to run under your OS, but at some point users need to take responsibility for buying hardware that is supported.
I don’t know where you get those stats from, but in any case it was over a decade ago and linux has gotten better.
I think there’s a rising level of frustration with both companies, but maybe only 1 in 150 or so will actually act on it.
Pushing big unwanted changes would encourage more people to look at alternatives, but pushing those same changes a little bit at a time will keep those same people on board, which is how unwanted changes gradually become worse over time.
Still, when people buy a computer (say a laptop), they expect everything inside the computer to work. If the Desktop Linux distros can’t convince OEMs to ship their OS for free and can’t make their own computers (like Apple does), it’s a problem with Desktop Linux, or more accurately the culture that surrounds it.
Which is why people generally stick to the version of Windows that shipped with the computer and will be hesitant to upgrade even if the new version is given to them for free. Again, people buy computers, not OSes.
Who is “we”? And how? And anyway, even if this could work with printers and such, everything inside the laptop is compatible with Windows, the OS that shipped with the computer is Windows, so from the user’s perspective, the computer works. If Desktop Linux distros don’t like this, either convince OEMs to ship supported Desktop Linux or go the Apple route and sell computers at the high street and take risk of doing so. The market doesn’t care if the culture surrounding Desktop Linux prevents that from happening.
Has it? I still see them relying on the “run this LiveDVD/USB and pray it works on your computer” distribution strategy, which is a strategy that still fails at the market and technical level.
If there is any competition, it will come from ChromeOS, aka Google’s fork of the Desktop Linux stack, which ships on supported hardware and is sold on the mainstream.
But then you will be bombarded with Google ads, and, as Thom said, you will have to sit back and… accept it.
As I’ve said before, all major modern OSes suck in at least one major way, so lots of people just stick with the devil they know.
Nothing baffling here…
kurkosdr,
Yes, but you omitted a very important point: it’s only expected to work with the OS it’s been tested with and certified for. It isn’t reasonable to expect hardware to just work with operating systems like linux, beos, macos, etc that you might prefer to use.
A lot of windows users got tricked/coerced into upgrades, but that’s really a different topic. Haha.
We, as in you and I and everyone should be combating false expectations that lead to bad experiences. Of course the computer works with the included OS, but we need to get real about the expectation that it will work with linux just because. You need to either buy from a linux vendor or else do your research because otherwise you are just rolling the dice.
Yes, we do have better drivers and compatibility today. Everyone is free to try linux on whatever random hardware they’ve got, but like I said it’s rolling the dice. It’s like building a hackintosh and expecting it to work just by chance. It just is not a reasonable expectation. You, me, and everyone should be putting emphasis on buying well supported hardware to run linux, otherwise it will come down to dumb luck..
Yes, I’d like to see much more competition for linux sellers. It’s a real challenge especially when it ends up being more expensive due to the low scales of economy.
A bit tangential but chromeos’s printer compatibility was worse than linux. And like so many other things google discountinued its integrated print service in favor of CUPS.
https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/9633006
Nvidia Optimus, Dolby Digital equalizers (most Windows laptops have one now), wifi, suspend, power management… enough said.
I mean, you can avoid this by shipping with validated components, which brings me to:
Apple doesn’t expect people to build Hackintoshes to use MacOS (in fact they discourage it). Desktop Linux has a practically non-existent “main-street” presence and its distribution strategy boils down to run this LiveDVD/USB and pray it works on your computer”. it’s a strategy that has failed at the market and technical level.
Nobody in Desktop Linux land wants to take the risk of doing what Apple does, and that’s a problem, and it’s a problem dictated by the culture surrounding Desktop Linux.
Any competition to Windows PCs and Macs will come from Chrome OS. It ships on supported hardware, is sold on the “main-street” (and comes with app stores that allow people to buy proprietary apps and games, unlike things like repositories).
kurkosdr,
And? It doesn’t change anything at all. The answer is as it always was…use linux on hardware that IS supported. Not for nothing but if we applied your standard to MacOS then it would be one of the worst operating systems on the planet. But it isn’t a reasonable standard. We don’t judge the MacOS experience based on hardware it’s incompatible with, we judge it based on compatible hardware that it’s been designed for.
So that is what you should be criticizing because that’s what the real problem is. I agree linux needs a “main street” backer. But it is notoriously difficult to compete in a market already saturated by giants. If you have a solution for this, then that’s what we should be talking about.
Here is the solution: Toss away any “fuh-ree” bits that hinder main-street sales potential. And by “fuh-ree” I mean beer, speech, beard… all the variants of it. If it hurts main-street sales potential, out it goes.
Here are some ideas:
1. Commit to a small number of components and support them (with proprietary drivers if needed). Like Google did on Android and ChromeOS.
2. Improve ties with hardware vendors: either commit to a stable ABI (hard) or do what Google did and stop changing kernels so fast (also: support old kernels in your new distro versions so people can upgrade without kernel bumps). Also, stop bothering vendors about kernel trees (who are you kidding sir? the hardware vendor will have to maintain the code again -see dark2’s comment below- only now their code belongs to the church of the holy GNU) and stop calling them leeches or giving them the finger (it may dampen the mood).
3. Have repositories with proprietary software
4. Add DRM (for things like Netflix) because the only way to avoid DRM is to avoid all paid mainstream content (at least at resolutions above 720p)
5. Support Android apps out of the box, if not with Play Store with Amazon App Store.
Just off the top of my head. Of course, good luck proposing any of these to the Desktop Linux crowd.
Basically, that’s the problem with Desktop Linux: The communitah wants to have their clean “fuh-ree” OS (beer speech, beard… the whole shebang) while at the same time playing at the main-street (a very dirty place, all down to the hardware).
And then there is the issue of lack of funds when you are giving your OS for free for anyone to fork, but that’s another rant for another day. But, at its current state, Desktop Linux cannot even be given away and OEMs prefer to sell systems with FreeDOS pre-installed instead (to satisfy the “blue laws” that computers have to be sold with an OS) because if they sell Desktop Linux at its current state, they will have to support it (dun dun duunnnn…)
kurkosdr,
So you believe that FOSS operating systems are bad for hardware sales?
Yes, commercial linux vendors are doing exactly that.
I agree with that, although I don’t think it does much to help improve main-street presence.
There are a number of good reasons to have open source code, the most important of which could be not being dependent on manufacturers for OS updates. Looking at android we see what happens when the source code is closed and it isn’t pretty. A lot of us feel that the android model would be regressive for desktop computers.
IMHO there is value in “free as in freedom”, but maybe you can argue that it’s a case of having one’s cake and eating it too. It is hard to predict what would happen if linux encouraged manufactures to release proprietary drivers. Maybe there would be an uptick in support, but I don’t think we should assume it. I suspect the reason they aren’t supporting linux is simply financial: they don’t want to double their driver development & testing costs to support a much smaller user base. This is what makes it so hard to sell management on supporting an OS that doesn’t have critical mass.
Sure, Steam has done very well and I think there is room for more competition in this area. Business/accounting/cad/etc software. People’s feelings are going to be mixed on this, but I think commercial application developers should be welcome.
Well, nobody is really stopping netflix and others from building dedicated DRM clients for linux. For better or worse though netflix uses silverlight. A clone of silverlight does work on linux but microsoft refuses to license the DRM for linux so we’re not allowed to open anything encrypted with microsoft’s DRM.
Google on the other hand has ported it’s DRM to linux and apparently you can stream from netflix and others via this path…
https://www.howtogeek.com/119204/how-to-watch-netflix-on-linux/
https://linuxhint.com/enabling_widevine_drm_ubuntu/
I’ve never had much of a desire to do this since I strongly prefer desktop apps. But sure why not.
There’s some elements of truth to it, but also some over-generalized overtones. All of us should keep an open mind.
“Still, when people buy a computer (say a laptop), they expect everything inside the computer to work. If the Desktop Linux distros can’t convince OEMs to ship their OS for free and can’t make their own computers (like Apple does), it’s a problem with Desktop Linux, or more accurately the culture that surrounds it.”
There are more problems than that. Dell sell computers with Ubuntu installed, but only in some countries. I asked before buying mine if they would supply a linux laptop? Answer no.
Would they sell a laptop with no OS installed? Again the answer is no.
How am I supposed to buy a laptop with linux installed if the main manufacturers won’t sell them?
I did look into System76 and Entroware but neither had quite what I wanted.
The laptop I got from Dell works perfectly with linux except for the fingerprint reader, and I wouldn’t use that if it did work.
I couldn’t tell you how well the laptop works, or not, with Windows as I deleted it from the computer as soon as I found out registering for an account was a requirement.
There is a law in some countries that computers have to be sold with an OS. That’s why some OEMs sell computers with FreeDOS. I bought my Lenovo Z70-80 with FreeDOS btw (installed Windows 10 on it, then downgraded to 8,.1)
Which says what you need to know about Desktop Linux: You can’t even give it away to OEMs because they don’t want to support it (FreeDOS doesn’t need support because it doesn’t do much).
“but this has more to do with market share than anything else.”
Honestly, at this point whenever I start reading a pro-Linux argument involving market share I completely disregard it as a cart before the horse argument. The basic fact is if desktop Linux were good, it would be preinstalled on more systems; it will never be the other way around because reality simply will never work that way.
” but in any case it was over a decade ago and linux has gotten better.”
This one is also arguably false, especially for laptops and 2 in 1s as proper power state management for them is typically only built for Windows, and drivers for all the new states haven’t made it to Linux. Then the 5.18 kernel has been a horrific update with tons of posts on user help forums about how their laptop now has a corrupted screen after resume from standby; with recommendations to downgrade to an earlier kernel to resolve the problem. Notably something like this should never have happened as it seemed to be mostly laptops with Radeon GPUs, and their drivers should be maintained forever in the Linux kernel source code. Interestingly when Microsoft screws up a Windows update this badly you guys are all sharks, but when Linux screws up an update that badly not a sound. It’s an enormous double standard I can’t help but point out.
dark2,
It doesn’t make it any less true. It’s a classic chicken and egg problem.
How do you propose to fix it though when the manufactures don’t want to support it due to too low market share?
I am critical of both if you haven’t noticed.
“It doesn’t make it any less true. It’s a classic chicken and egg problem.”
Nope, the fact is outside of the Linux community echo chamber it’s just a bad product. The preinstalled idea has already been tried by Dell and a Brazilian PC maker. No one outside of the niche of programming on Linux people want it as their OS. The desktop portion is far too unstable and unreliable (AKA, Snap breaking during an update on Ubuntu can leave your entire system unable to run any software, even a terminal window needed to fix the issue. The rest of the distros/software managers aren’t really much better.)
“How do you propose to fix it though when the manufactures don’t want to support it due to too low market share?”
They could fix it the same way everyone else does. A stable driver ABI and an actual SDK for third parties to end the nonsense of the package managers. Too bad this is boring work that requires tons of full time developers. Maybe if the Ubuntu, Fedora, and Suse got together and agreed to do something about maintaining a binary compatible SDK instead of wasting millions on things like Unity, it might actually happen. However it’s obvious to see the problem with what I just suggested, the Linux community will always prefer the status quo. Then they look for magic bullet solutions like Flatpack and Snap instead of doing the hard work mentioned above. Eventually the veil comes off and you realize Linux on the desktop will always be a colossal waste of time for anyone outside of the programming niche. The community likes it difficult, they like their more religious arguments for how great it is; and getting them to band around something so obvious as a real SDK would be impossible. Eventually the vast majority (99%) of attempted Linux converts realize tolerating a few ads in Windows for seconds of your day, or buying an expensive Mac is a much better use of your money/time than Desktop Linux. It’s always going to be that way since decisions in the Linux world are far more ideological than practical.
dark2,
You are entitled to your opinion, but you can’t “nope” basic economic facts.
It’s funny that the successful platforms have actually shifted towards centralized repos. The reality is they work and they’re popular with the public. Even if you don’t like one of them on linux there are alternatives like steam for games, the snapcraft store, flatpaks, etc. I don’t think you can make a sound argument that this is the reason people aren’t using linux. A better reason would be that their software isn’t available on linux at all.
These work the same way as packages on IOS and Android, which hasn’t stopped either of those from being popular. The difference is they have critical mass. You may not acknowledge just how much of a barrier this is, but it’s true. I use lineage OS, which uses the exact same technology as android and the only difference is marketshare. So do you think my bank, employer, local fast food restaurants, grocery stores etc support Lineage OS? No they won’t even lift a finger even though it’s practically 100% compatible. Why is that? The reality is that the duopoly gets almost 100% of the support resources with very concern about niche users.
Marketshare is one of the most relevant motivators. Your own opinions about linux can have merit, but nevertheless that doesn’t negate the fact that the marketshare catch-22 is very real.
Alfman,
“You are entitled to your opinion, but you can’t “nope” basic economic facts.”
Go outside and talk to average, real people. You’ll find the facts are not to your liking on this.
“It’s funny that the successful platforms have actually shifted towards centralized repos.”
And this is called moving the goal posts. You’ve learned “how operating systems work” through how Linux works, but the others simply don’t work that way at all. Just because they can download apps from on online source, doesn’t mean the internals work similarly at all. Once again the others have an SDK, tens of thousands of tests to make sure that single file doesn’t break when it’s downloaded and installed, and everything just works. Even Torvalds has called the static linking of everything “not ideal.” After you’ve made this (ridiculous) argument about per say an app store having anything to do with the ridiculousness of Linux app managers, you’ve basically shown you’re motivators for liking desktop Linux are more religious than practical. That’s the problem with desktop Linux, you outright reject reality and can’t listen to valid complaints like this without trying to discredit them, nor do you try to find the underlying truth in the complaints. With the majority of desktop Linux users being basically religious rather than practical in this way, no real progress will be made. Take my example of Snap breaking every app after an update. The problem isn’t Snap, the problem is the desktop OS didn’t detect the broken update and automatically roll it back; indicating that desktop Linux is 10 years behind in reliability compared to commercial operating systems and it’s only getting worse. People need an OS made by realists, not zealots.
dark2,
s/facts/opinions/. You presume that I am bothered by people’s opinions, but I don’t have a problem with them. I am a fan of people having meaningful choices and choosing what’s best for themselves without coercion. Unfortunately though most technology markets have consolidated into monopolies and duopolies that render all alternatives non-viable and that’s what I am against.
The point was we have sandboxed applications that work as well as IOS and android.
I beg to differ. Snap and flatpack are used the same as IOS and Android packages are with sandboxing and everything. It just works because the dependencies are included, just as they are in IOS and android.
It isn’t ideal, but then neither are APKs. You’re applying a double standard.
No, you think I’ve done that due to prejudice, but it’s not actually true. I’ve posted many criticisms about linux myself, but some of the anti-linux rants stem from opinions that are predetermined to hate on linux rather than objective conclusions.
I’ll look at that bug but you’ve got to provide a link.
Baffling? Not at all. Mainstream users buy computers like they buy appliances. To them there isn’t a difference between a laptop and a washing machine. They get one and it just has to work. Any alternative that requires them to think about more than turning the thing on is out the window. Ads in the laptop appliance? Annoying, but it still does what they want from it. The ads get ignored for the most part. Who hasn’t trained themselves to be ad blind on the internet? “Oh look. Blinky blinky thing. Now where is the stuff that I did visit the website for?”
As long as there are no turnkey machines with an alternative OS (non MacOS) on the market at competitive prices, people will tolerate the nastier bits of Windows. Who in their right mind pays $ 1,500,- for a boutique Linux laptop, which has $ 650,- specs on the Windows side?
r_a_trip,
I am very price sensitive as well. Linux doesn’t have scales of economy that can bring prices down, but without lower prices turnkey linux systems are not very competitive. It’s a big catch-22.
This gets amplified by vendors that prop up the monopoly by forcefully bundling windows, which I think needs to become illegal for the sake of competition. But anyways the result is that almost all desktop/laptop prebuilts legitimately running linux get registered as windows sales and microsoft gets paid for them despite their not wanting windows. This skews the data and resources even further into microsoft’s camp than it should be. It’s completely unethical that so many linux users have to pay the microsoft tax. I wouldn’t be surprised if microsoft’s il-gotten gains have added up to billions over the years.
Alfman,
This is also highly related with the drivers situation on Linux.
Getting Dell fingerprint readers work on Ubuntu was a hassle for example. And there would be many other small pieces here and there that would not work, or not work very well.
We already have issues supporting Android upgrades on essentially Linux certified devices. How can we expect Dell (or Lenovo, or hp, or others) spend extra time and money, if they can just snap on Windows instead?
(To be fair, they actually offer Ubuntu as a factory option on some product lines: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystems)
sukru,
Yea, they do deserve credit for that. I don’t actually like Dell’s desktop line very much though.. In the linux link you posted, all the GPUs are radeon pros or nvidia quadros. It doesn’t look like they offer systems with regular consumer GPUs?
The cheapest system starts at above $1k with no GPU, one stick of RAM, 300W power supply… Alas I haven’t looked at prices lately so this may be the new normal, haha.
Alfman,
Honestly, I am not 100% sure. It could be laziness. It could be extra price being worth the additional effort.
Or it could just be financial:
Lenovo for example supports Linux on these systems:
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/configurator/cto/index.html?bundleId=30BXCTO1WWUS1
But does not let you buy one without Windows. Which they conveniently bundle with other software, or offer as upgrades (Office, Adobe, AntiVirus, etc).
hp, too has official Linux support on “Z” systems, but still force bundle Windows with them:
https://www.hp.com/us-en/workstations/mobile-workstation-pc.html
(I expect there would be a “hidden” way to order them with Ubuntu. I just could not find it with a simple search).
Windows users put up with this because for a lot of use cases Windows is still the best game in town, even if it’s no longer the only one. Office stuff? Always that one really vital app that doesn’t work on Wine or have a ChromeOS version. Gaming? Wine + DXVK is *amazing* but it won’t play everything, or give a stable experience with everything. Media creation? A lot of people can’t afford the Mac ecosystem. End user desktop? Windows is still the most reliable and well rounded desktop OS for most users, because it’s easy enough to use, compatible enough with legacy programs, and its robustness and security have improved a lot in recent versions. Plus it ships preinstalled on most laptops/desktops, and random IT people are more likely to know it than Linux. And likewise, end users tend to know it better, so they tend to stick with it.
There are ways around all these things (and my own company uses a bunch of them LOL). But at the end of the day, most of them are too expensive or not worth the effort for end users. So Windows is still a product with a large captive user base, who will put up with whatever MS throws at them because the other choices are worse.
rainbowsocks,
The thing about MS office is that I used to be a fan of the older versions and especially excel but then MS seemed adamant that they needed to build a new UI. I felt the changes were bad enough that I was pushed to Libre Office over MS Office. I think MS shot themselves in the foot with that one because it would have been harder to switch to linux if I had been pleased with MS Office.,
Agreed, don’t assuming it will play/run everything because it won’t. That said it’s gotten much better and if you use steam & gog many titles are actually very well supported on linux.
Yes, it’s natural for people to stick to what they know. Why change what works for them? The devil’s in the details though since in reality windows itself can change for the worse. I didn’t migrate to linux out of thin air, I grew tired of microsoft policies that put themselves in front of my interests. Consiquently I decided to put in the effort to switch. If someone thinks MS is making windows worse then they should be vocal about it to make sure MS knows it. If MS is dead set on those changes, then it’s time to make a decision: stick with them anyways or find an alternative.
Obviously that is subjective and depends on your specific needs. I think linux difficulty often gets exaggerated at least with officially supported hardware. But we don’t have the merchant and support “infrastructure” that windows has (all those computer shops supporting the MS monopoly) and I find that to be a huge disadvantage for new linux users.
There’s always apple. There aren’t that many apple stores around either but at least some people can get to one within an hours drive. Personally I don’t like where apple is going either, especially deliberately making hardware less user-serviceable and then charging so much for repairs that it’s not worthwhile. They lock down parts & supply chains to foil independent repairs. I can’t support that in good conscience.
It’s hard as a consumer to go outside of the duopoly because support options for both software and hardware drop so quickly 🙁
It were more popular there would be more support, It’s a catch-22.