[tinco]

Yeah it has on occasion, you're right in that it usually doesn't have much of an effect but every once in a while it does. If there's enough of the self-sacrificing users they'll together save a business or a way of doing things. Like running Linux on consumer hardware, or using cash in retail stores.

They don't necessarily have to coordinate, they can use a thousand different linux distro's and literally never talk to each other, and still cause PC manufacturers to keep to a standardized boot process and largely documented hardware so that Linux remains viable.