AppImage and Flatpak are making inroads to eliminating this foolishness, but I still routinely run into software that isn't yet on board with that.
Even under your rare worst-case scenario, recovery has never been easier with "live" flash drives. No need to live in fear of breaking something.
Sadly, while some parts of the Linux Desktop have come a long way since the 90s, many others have not.
> If you have a "toxic" relationship with inept/malicious application software, break ties with it now just as you should from Microsoft.
Presumably people use software to do something, and many times there simply isn't alternative software that does what you want to do and you're stuck with it even though it is toxic.
> Even under your rare worst-case scenario, recovery has never been easier with "live" flash drives. No need to live in fear of breaking something.
Here's something else you might have read on Slashdot in 97 that's still applicable today: "Linux is free only if your time isn't worth anything". My fear isn't losing data or being unable to get back to the working state, it's the time I lose having to go through the effort of doing that when the simple case of just installing a goddamned application shouldn't be such a pain in the first place.
I am a long time windows user who recently switched to PopOS.I'll say its getting better. This was one thing I was worried about switch back to linux. After I got fed up with what Microsoft is doing with Windows 11, I decided I had it and switched. So far it has not been as a pain in the ass as much as it used to be. There are a few things I still have to tweak to get my work flow back to the way it was on Windows.