[pistle]

The vendor knows that if someone WANTS a non-windows PC, they are going to be willing to pay more, so the price goes up. They also are implementing a whole new process for a small set of customers which increases their costs. They pass those directly on to the consumers with the need/want. It's the special flower luxury tax.

[scholia]

Exactly right.

It actually does cost more to make and sell a non-Windows PC. You have extra work to install and validate the different OS for hardware and drivers, plus extra stock-keeping, accounting and distribution costs, and then extra advertising and support costs.

And you don't get a kickback from installing crapware ;-)

If you do all that, most of your buyers will complain that you've installed one version of Linux and they would have preferred a different version....