Technology

I don't disagree with your point, but I think that the most important variable is how receptive the average person is to change. It takes a lot of discomfort for most people to want to make a significant change. Most people probably won't even recognize that Windows sucks because it's what they're familiar with and they probably attribute general tech improvements and new software with the OS because they don't know any better. So they see it as better in a lot of ways and only worse in a couple of ways. They probably also generally think that the only alternative is an overpriced Apple product. It wasn't until YouTube started cracking down on ad blockers that most people were even aware of the existence of ad blockers lmao. So I'm sure your average Windows user thinks that Linux means programming gobbledygook in cmd.exe and they would rather scroll Facebook. People are dumb and uninterested in the discomfort of learning things. Even if what they're learning is that there's not much discomfort because there's not much new to learn. You have to trick them by sneaking vegetables into their food. "You have a Samsung phone. That runs Android. Android is Linux. See, you're already using it." It's a fucking shock to me that Windows phones never took off.

But maybe the most important factor to Microsoft is the business world. It's obviously not unanimous, but a shitload of companies rely on the Office suite. Switching to something different overnight might be easy for some workers, but I'd assume a massive disruption in productivity until everybody got acclimated. There would probably need to be some kind of canned training thing to help workers with the transition, which would cost more money. In general, companies would run a cost-benefit analysis and ultimately decide that it really doesn't make much business sense to make that change when things are fine as is. Because in reality, Windows is fine. It's not bad enough for a business to burden a rocky quarter just because of some ads and a little jank.

The bad news for Microsoft however is that privacy and security could be getting called into question. Some businesses here and there might get worried about that, but it's the big Department of Defense fish that will drop them overnight because it's a matter of national security. In the same way that government devices banned tiktok years before considering a nationwide ban, government devices would not hesitate to dump Microsoft. Their greed could be their downfall. They're okay so long as the government and their big contractors keep running Windows.