But ~0% of them know or care that they use Linux, it's either is a functional device for them or has a rebranded OS (Android)

It's branding, it's more about perception than raw usage statistics.

I wouldn't call my Android phone or smart TV a Linux box, and when I browse a website there's no "served by Linux" logo :) end users simply have no idea nor care about any of this.

Nobody is disputing that Linux became an overwhelming success.

spectramax was comparing it to Linux on the desktop (which never really became mainstream).

He's specifically talking about Linux on the Desktop, which is hovering around 2% market share ( http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/... )

It might be that bitcoin is similar to linux - used as a backbone, but not customer friendly enough to ever be used directly by customers. Like maybe banks use it to transfer large amounts of money between each other or something.

Almost 3%, if combined with ChromeOS. IMHO, it is huge success, even if we forget about Linux domination in market of supercomputers, servers, smartphones, and large segment of market in IoT and robotics.

Bitcoin is far far away from such success.

> It might be that bitcoin is similar to linux - used as a backbone, but not customer friendly enough to ever be used directly by customers.

That's my point; I think this is a possible and not unreasonable outcome for Bitcoin.