Apple computers are typically rather mostly used by people from media and audio production (+ some hipsters). GNU/Linux has its very vocal users, but as a matter of fact, it is rather a niche outside of nerd circles.

I would thus rather say many European countries are more Microsoft-centered, even though at least in Germany I would say that people deeply hate and distrust the more and more spying functionalities that Microsoft introduces into its software. So I would claim this current dominance of the Microsoft ecosystem is fragile.

Surprisingly, at least in Germany I observe that Microsoft plans to stop providing updates to Windows 10 (and forces the users to buy new computers) has made quite a lot of mainstream users to at least consider switching to the GNU/Linux ecosystem:

It is perhaps difficult to understand to people who are used to the US mentality, but the fact that Microsoft announced that Windows 10 will be the last Windows, and after that broke this promise (and particular importantly: cease to provide further updates for Windows 10 despite this promise) is considered to be near "high treason" by many PC users - a nigh-unforgivable sin. In particular US-American companies should really learn to understand that (in the eyes of German users, who consider such promises to be sacred) if you give a promise, and break it, this is (I am only slightly exaggerating) something that the CEO (or even the board) of the respective company should better commit suicide for because of the shame that he brought to the company.

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bee_rider 5 days ago | parent [-]

A lot of people are annoyed with Microsoft in the US as well, although I guess we’ll see if that translates into switching.

> Apple computers are typically rather mostly used by people from media and audio production (+ some hipsters).

For what it’s worth, this is the sort of stuff I meant by “stylish and cool,” these are the fashionable people, right? That doesn’t make their decisions good, at all (I intentionally picked the description “stylish and cool,” not “good and technically solid.”)

	▲	aleph_minus_one 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		> For what it’s worth, this is the sort of stuff I meant by “stylish and cool,” these are the fashionable people, right? The difference is: outside of these bubbles (somewhat excluding the audio production people: these are in my opinion rather pragmatic about their computers; it's just that Apple historically had the best support for their requirements) Apple is not considered stylish and cool, but rather ridiculed, and fun is made of this Apple-fanboi-ism. So, it's rather some "Apple bubble" where the people inside it (in particular the hipsters and some media people inside this bubble) praise each other (and themselves :-) ) for being stylish, cool and having a refined taste, but outside of this bubble this judgment is not shared.