Why do you expect intelligent strategy from a company that is actively enshittifying their most critical product (Windows) at a time when it is on a downward trajectory of relevance (linux and macos are both perfectly viable and well supported platforms).
I have a hard time with this argument when Win32 is currently the most stable ABI on linux. I just got done playing around with Elden Ring via Proton on my Steam Deck and it's very obvious what the right solution is from an end user perspective.
Windows, despite the irrefutable enshittification, is still orders of magnitude more productive in a UI/UX/human/team setting. Anything linux that has to touch a non technical human needs a billion dollar effort to smooth over the rough edges. Even in the case of Steam Deck, I had trouble getting the machine going for the first hour.
> Windows (..) is still orders of magnitude more productive
Is it really, though? Most of the work in the Business Factory is done using cloud software these days. The OS itself has become mostly irrelevant to the end user and has been reduced to the web browser's runtime.
The rest is going to depend heavily on your industry, with some tooling just being better suited to a specific platform. Creative industries? MacOS. Web development? Linux. CAD? Windows. Use the wrong platform, and even if it technically works, you could still end up in a world of pain rather than having it Just Work.
Trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole is always going to lead to friction, that is not a unique Linux-only problem.
I don't speak for all consumers, but at least I prefer a company that puts on a good show of garnering trust even if the UX is eroding. Apple's security and privacy measures all make sense. They do still require some measure of trust, but they are not overtly saying "pay us annual subscriptions so that we can monitor all activity on your personal computing device". That's a business model that erodes customer base faster than execs can snap out of their reality distortion fields. I wouldn't want to be an MS shareholder right now, but I wouldn't mind owning Apple.
