It's not like they only start developing the driver when the card is released. In either case, they work with the OS vendor for months or years prior to develop

It's not like they only start developing the driver when the card is released. In either case, they work with the OS vendor for months or years prior to develop the driver. One often sees this in e.g. Intel drivers coming out in the Linux kernel well before the hardware is available to the consumer. You're not entirely wrong, either, though; it's more of a concern with LTS support. Though this is reduced somewhat by most things not actually needing custom drivers by using existing standards, e.g. HID, and/or by userspace drivers. And, of course, you don't have it at all if you only buy hardware with Linux pre-installed and supported by the vendor. You know, like you do with Windows and Mac.