[donogh]

This minor deterrant to adoption scales up with lots of other minor deterrents. Users want "it just works" and that's the experience they get with Microsoft and Apple (however bad it is in other ways).

Desktop Linux must match or exceed that base level of experience if it wants to drive meaningful adoption.

Let's be practical: give users a brief explanation of the downsides before they make choices like installing proprietary codecs. Treat them like adults. Let them have an easier life in favor of getting them on board.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Users want "it just works" and that's the experience they get with Microsoft and Apple (however bad it is in other ways).

It isn't. With Apple they get "it works or it doesn't" which is crap when it doesn't, because you can't fix it and Apple won't. With Microsoft things are commonly broken, often by accident, and no easier to fix than installing codecs on Linux. But worse, with both of them, is when things are broken on purpose. Almost like Linux. Only not for your benefit, but for theirs, at your expense.

Which puts some lie to the notion that easier always wins. It isn't easier to use Windows, it's a mess of bad code and half of it is out to get you. People use Windows because they have to, or because it came on their computer when they bought it. If you want adoption you need to address that -- do something about the Windows-only apps. Get more Linux PCs into the stores.

Which are the things that are happening. Things that used to need Windows are now websites or mobile apps. Google's money got Chromebooks onto the store shelves. And if you include ChromeOS, Linux has gone from <1% market share in 2010 to now having as much desktop market share as Mac did back then. All of which at the expense of Microsoft, because now Mac has twice that much.

Being opinionated isn't the problem, it's a feature. The competition is opinionated too, but its opinion is that you're cattle to be milked.