I think at Microsoft they know they can do whatever they want with Windows and nothing will change.

In corporate, no manager cares about the operating system their employees use. Unless there's a significant drop in productivity by using Windows, no one will bother with the cost of switching to another OS.

In the private sector, most people buy their computers straight off the shelf, i.e. with Windows. Here at HN, we're tech enthusiasts, but out there those who know what "Debian with GNOME" means are very few, and the rest will at most complain a little about how Windows has become, but then they'll just continue to use it.

The rest of the world, outside HN and similar techy online communities, largely doesn't know Linux exists. They know Windows and Mac. Macs are expensive and unfamiliar. Windows machines are cheap and can be bought at Walmart.