Image manipulation and video editing are the only reasons I can think of someone would want something other than the hardware of a Chromebook. If Google opened up the Linux internals or made it dead simple to dual boot they would have a perfectly good development environment for web developers as well.

Perhaps not people you know, but a lot of us enjoy drawing for fun. For me, at least, Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator and a Wacom tablet is the best way to go if I want to do anything digital. Corel Painter is pretty good, too. Linux isn't a good option for any of these things.

In a lot of professional environments it is not. First of all, many employers do not like uploading documents into a cloud.

Secondly, in an organization that uses Microsoft Office (which is probably still the vast majority of organizations), it is often not a replacement. A lot of Office files (especially with macros, etc.) do not work properly. Colleagues expect you return a document with updates with Office's 'track changes' functionality ("here, you have a Google Docs link with my changes to your Word document" will not fly).

I think Microsoft still has a large advantage in big organizations, due to their traditional dominance. And Office 365/Exchange has added collaboration features as well (that work with Office on Mac and Windows).

I can't see that changing for a long time, I think people continue underestimate how hard it is for average adults in the workplace to jump around platforms, we are programmers (mostly) we are comfortable picking up new software and platforms as and when we need them but it's a classic case of "what applies to me applies to everyone".

That 50yo who is awesome at his job but 'useless' (by our metrics) with computers is still awesome at his job.

I agree, and in fact would extend it to dominance in entire industries where compatibility is key. I can imagine if a lawyer returned a 100 page M&A agreement via Google Docs they would be laughed out of the room and told to try again. Or an accountant sharing a company's entire set of financial statements in Google Sheets rather than Excel - same result.

Cloud collaboration offerings are fantastic tools in my opinion, particularly for lightweight idea sharing. I know Google has grand plans for its productivity suite, but I think it will be an uphill battle to de-throne Microsoft anytime soon due to its widespread acceptance in a lot of industries as the "standard".

There are Windows Laptops with good 10+ hour battery life (e.g. Thinkpads). But they aren't a "little more" they're $1K+. Chromebooks are around $250-400.

Here's an example with all that plus a dedicated graphics card for $549: https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-E5-575G-53VG-15-6-Inch-Wi...

Or without the dedicated graphics for $470: https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16834315779

You're essentially buying a very high resolution ssh terminal + documentation viewer for your $500.

If you can do your editing locally, and connect to something more beefy when needed, whoopty do. It depends on what your needs are. Personally, a really nice screen and touchpad are huge features for me... at home/work a physical switch keyboard (buckling spring or cherry-mx browns)... who cares?

I want more, you want more, but there's no need to poopoo on someone else for not aligning with your own sensibilities.

But not including RAM, CPU and disk space because they're on a server somewhere makes absolutely no sense.

SCM and CI/CD are irrelevant for the comparison because they cost exactly the same whether you use a Chromebook, a Windows laptop or a Mac.

Currently, a Mac or not is not a question for me. I prefer macOS with such a wide margin over Windows and Linux (for the desktop) that I am willing to pay the premium. Moreover, macOS has many applications that I like and are not available on other platforms (OmniGraffle, OmniFocus, Alfred, Tweetbot, Pastebot, etc.). However, after trying WSL I for the first time had the feeling that Windows could become an alternative to consider.

They aren't $1k+. They're literally a little more than the $400 Chromebook.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019G7VPTC/

The Windows Subsystem for Linux was so much slower than just running Ubuntu the last time I tries, the only reason I have for booting into windows is to update the skill queues for my eve characters once every few months.