...continuing here: 5. Slow Update Cycles. This is about hardware support; in recent years there have been rare cases in my experience where some new hardware

...continuing here: 5. Slow Update Cycles. This is about hardware support; in recent years there have been rare cases in my experience where some new hardware was not supported on Linux quickly enough (let's say either on launch day or withing a few months of launch). But this is only if you look at the latest kernel version. Distributions don't run the latest by default, and many don't even provide a way to install a Linux with the latest kernel shortly after it's available. So you might be stuck at installing the OS because the live USB uses an older kernel incompatible with your hardware and halts at a text prompt. It only takes one annoyed person, with a new toy that he wants to try out, to blast Linux since Ubuntu did not install on his new laptop, and the whole ecosystem gets a bad reputation in his social cycle. Speaking of which... 6. UX/UI. Normal, every day consumers don't like text and beeps. They don't want to see it on the screen when the computer is booting, nor want to run commands in a terminal, nor want to edit configuration files. They want slick UIs that look good, spinners and animations that make it look like the device is from the future, not walls of texts and beeps. But for Linux, it seems like people don't want to refine the system with such things. This to me seems like a cultural problem that Linux has. 7. Leadership. There is no one person with authority around the entire ecosystem, that can force a direction change. You have the Kernel team that do their own thing, the distributions which focus on their stuff, the desktop environments doing whatever they please. This creates a great ecosystem for experts that know what they're doing and can piece things together. But common consumers are not like that. Their main focus is to feel good about themselves and the things they use, and a leader that can make choices for them on things they don't care to understand is part of this. So far there has been no such charismatic individual to penetrate the mind of consumers and address their needs since there is no way for such an individual to influence the direction of all the Linux ecosystem members. When Steve Jobs said a thing, it got done. When Bill Gates said a thing, it got done. But when Linus says something, maybe someone takes note, no pressure though... So the things people care about don't really get implemented, as everybody works on whatever they want in the Linux world. A great things for experts but a bad thing for everyday consumers.