If they need specific software to do their job you’d think that their employer would be the one supplying their computer. So I don’t think this would be as common as thing as you’re suggesting.

I’m not ruling it out as a possibility but at the same time… Have you seen people shopping for computers at Walmart? I have and a recent question I overheard was, “How fast is the Internet?” which after some back and forth with the salesperson revealed that they wanted a new laptop for Facebook/Instagram and play browser-based games. When I left the salesperson was directing them to a Chromebook which was probably going to be a vastly superior option for that customer than a Windows laptop (opens right to the browser, less maintenance, no worries about malware, etc).

As highly technical PC people it’s easy for us to forget that for the vast majority of computer users the only app they ever open is a web browser. In fact, for a ton of young people growing up right now a computer is a device that runs a web browser and they don’t even really understand what a web browser is!

When your average user buys a new Windows PC it’ll be loaded with all sorts of bloatware that they will never remove. They will close the popups asking them to renew subscriptions, update things, etc as a matter of course. It becomes second nature to them! They don’t even read what the messages are… They just click OK or the X. Windows trains them to do this! Because it has so fucking many intrusive popups! I mean, come on: Everyone knows that’s a terrible user experience and drives us (the PC power users) fucking nuts when we sit down at a “normie” PC and see all that shit. It’s practically a twitch reflex for most of us to open up Apps/Programs and Features and get to work uninstalling things and if you’re used to using a Linux desktop this particular experience will feel like driving nails into your head because Linux desktops are much more user friendly! They don’t have that problem!