In 2001 there were plenty of people who were critical of Microsoft and their market share abuse but this was at a time when saying "stop using Windows" was akin

In 2001 there were plenty of people who were critical of Microsoft and their market share abuse but this was at a time when saying "stop using Windows" was akin to saying "stop driving a car". Why was this? Perhaps because the state of free (as in speech) operating systems didn't allow most people to make the switch (put aside the corporate world for now). People want stuff that just works[0], and looks relatively pretty, and that was really not the state of GNU/Linux desktops at the turn of the century. I realize that the developers have fought against certain things outside of their control (closed source drivers, for instance), but there's always been that hacker attitude driving GNU/Linux development and usage, so the concerns of the non-power user are often an afterthought. If there existed a legitimate alternative to Windows with the same ease of use, it would be far less difficult to convince someone to switch. [0] Yes, I know, Windows crashes and Plug and Play is often not that.