> While this could absolutely happen, the way that Linux as a whole has been developing over the years isn't always conducive to making the world's Windows and macOS users convert en masse.

Its the way Windows is developing that is driving this change. GNOME might be hardly usable but Microsoft managed to top that.

Edit: I retract the last sentence. I'm currently trying GNOME and its less usable than Windows.

Stock Gnome is indeed a mess, but thankfully we're not limited to that. KDE, Xfce, and Cinnamon all offer environments that are far more intuitive to use, especially from someone coming from Windows. And there are good distros built around all of these as the primary DE. I usually recommend Mint (the default edition, i.e. Cinnamon) to people who get UX fatigue from the recent developments in Windows land and want something that "just works" and isn't made by developers who have a permanent you're-holding-it-wrong mentality.

Edit 2: I accidentally minimized Steam to tray, but Gnome has no tray. Steam continues running invisible without being represented somewhere in the UI. One of the developers of Gnome (the only DE where this happens) said this is an application bug[1]. And then continues to complain that devs only test against "stock" environments.... but Gnome is the stock environment. What an ass.

I do understand why people bash Gnome and their developers. The hate is deserved.

[1] https://discourse.gnome.org/t/feature-request-show-when-apps...