✨princess awa✨

to get it out of the way because it'll bother me the whole time if I don't, enshittification is a silly word in a sort of "cromulent fuckcrustable" way

anyway, windows has been getting worse forever. microsoft is, has been, and will be an awful company that keeps bundling more and more spyware into their operating systems

that being said, I don't think it's fair to refer to it as an exodus without engaging in some pretty extreme survivorship bias. while a lot of people who post online about the operating system they use have at least considered switching to linux, a lot of people really did just switch over to windows 11. that's not even to speak of those that stayed on the old version. I don't think microsoft could actually be a singular driving force in a proper widespread adoption of a linux desktop

that's not a defence of microsoft or windows, because if microsoft fucking up could kill windows, it would have sunk quite some time ago. the AI integration is annoying, but remember when they threw an internet-connected searchbar into the place where the file search was, along with equating user profiles with microsoft accounts? it's a monopoly running on momentum that still hasn't died, despite everything

my actual thoughts here are that, for better and worse, consumer adoption of linux ends up resting more on the shoulders of computers shipping with linux installed, with clear ecosystems waiting for those users when they boot up the computers that incentivise them not to just install windows for compatability, and widespread support besides

this is why steam's push for linux gaming is, in my opinion, a more meaningful sign of this shift being eventually possible than just about anything else. support for video games is about as close as you can possibly cut to the average consumer's wants while still technically being in the hobbyist column

the baffling papple: