Linux doesn't solve nearly the same set of problems that Windows does. One is a kernel. The other is an operating system. Typically this is just semantics, but

Linux doesn't solve nearly the same set of problems that Windows does. One is a kernel. The other is an operating system. Typically this is just semantics, but it's meaningful here because you still need all of the other components (GNOME and X and PulseAudio and SystemD and so on, as concrete motivating examples) to make up the whole OS. And unsurprisingly, you end up losing out on features that would require vertical integration. Accessibility on Linux is more or less a non-starter, the design of every application and toolkit is blindingly variable, nothing about the system can be depended on (even the standard C library!) unless your app has been intentionally built and tested with that particular version of that grab bag of components. Windows is one thing. People know what they're getting when they use it. I don't like it much, but it certainly achieves the goal it set out to accomplish. I certainly don't lie awake in bed wondering why everyone uses it over my favorite grab bag of widgets that more or less looks like an OS.