this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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Most people would probably end up paying the subscription rather than relearning everything they already know. It may have long term impacts, but, like... I don't think this would make the average person switch to Linux. If any migration happens I'd expect more people to switch to Macs than Linux over time because that's more of a mainstream option.
That said there's lots of interesting stuff going on in the Linux world right now, and it's slowly but surely becoming a more interesting option for a lot of people. Valve's work on Proton / Linux in general is pretty huge. I still think you'd need a huge marketing push to convince the average person (which people on Lemmy are not) to install Linux themselves, or prefer buying a laptop with Linux pre-installed, though. It could happen eventually, and has happened in special cases (like the Steam Deck)... But short term I think most people are just going to pay a yearly subscription rather than upend their entire computing life.
Yep. I'm even a FOSS fanboy and the most I can manage is dual-booting, since I need some Windows-only applications for work.
At least for now. A monthly OS subscription would be reason enough to switch.
Yeah, I use Linux full time and have always used unixy operating systems and have never really used windows. So, like, sure, I think a lot of people could switch to Linux and be perfectly happy… but I’m under no delusions that people will and wouldn’t just pay a little more for a windows license instead. There’s probably a good chunk of people (particularly here) who would be more on the edge and willing to just drop the windows in this situation… but I doubt the average computer user is dying to try Gentoo in the event that Microsoft charges a subscription fee, haha.
Mac would absolutely be the big winner in such a case.
Although that said... Microsoft is trying to take some market share back from ChromeOS and iPadOS in the education world, and I can't imagine schools devoting any budget to Windows rentals.
Depends how Microsoft handles education licenses. I think historically they’ve been pretty good about giving university students licenses for free, and if they consider the education sector important enough (which they probably should) I am certain they could provide generous terms. If the schools don’t have to pay for the licenses I’m not sure they would bother switching off of windows at least. It will be interesting to see how the ChromeOS dominance in education plays out in the future, though!
True. K12 would probably get a really good deal.