I don't like this line of thinking because it is condescending. More importantly though, there are plenty of competent technical users like myself that would love to be using an open operating system but are fed up with dealing with the systemic problems Linux Desktop has that its developers and community keep papering over and pretending don't exist.
Strictly speaking, Windows is a usability nightmare. Most people don't notice simply because most people learn and use a tiny subset what is there. Beyond that, there is an entire industry to support Windows (which is part of the reason why people like it). Apple isn't much better. They tend to paper things over by simply dropping support. An example was brought up by another commenter when they mentioned that some ix programs use raster fonts. Strictly speaking that can happen under Linux yet not macOS since Apple dropped support for legacy software while some ix software is decades old. Linux will have its own issues, but I'm not the best judge of that since it is my operating system of choice.
At the end of the day, any operating system will be a compromise of some form or another. Which you choose will depend upon what your wants and needs are.
My problem isn't so much that there are tradeoffs, or even that those tradeoffs are not ones I want to make, it's that there are people out there who seem to insist that Linux Desktop is the one and only proper choice and everyone who doesn't choose it is either stupid or misinformed. If Linux Desktop people were more willing to listen to why people don't use it and take criticism to heart instead of as some kind of personal attack, it might have evolved into something more people would actually want to use.
That's fine, and I agree that advocates sometimes detract from progress.
I may be an extreme example in some ways, but everyone only has so many fucks to give, and most people have legitimately exhausted their budget by the time they get to tech policy.
This year is different though! I'm going to make it work. Also looking at Pinephone for my mobile.
That's the problem: non-tech people don't know they can do that. Besides, why would they buy a PC with "GNU/Linux" preinstalled if they don't know what "GNU/Linux" mean to begin with? Almost everyone out there knows what "Mac" or "Windows" means, and so they buy Apple stuff. Again, marketing.
Non-tech people don't want (or don't know how) to "setup". The most user-friendly setup won't ever beat "no setup" (e.g., macOS).
Besides, marketing plays a huge role as well. Ask people to name a few "computer" brands: Apple, Microsoft, Google. No one would name "Linux". So, it's not just that people should be able to buy Linux computers with no setup (Dell is selling them, I think), it's also that these kind of computers should get enough marketing so people know about them.