It wins because it's less friction, not zero friction. There's a reason, other than old applications, that there are still Windows 7 installations. Many people don't want to upgrade their Windows until they upgrade their hardware because it's a hassle getting the interface back to the way you want it.

Anecdotally I'm not a programmer and I switched to Ubuntu when I bought this laptop in 2013, with about 3 or 4 years of dual booting for software purposes before I stayed on Ubuntu. I'll switch away from Ubuntu to a more user friendly distribution with my next computer because it's pushing features I really don't like, and deleting features I really do like. My wife is also not a programmer and with the upgrade to Windows 10 we had to do a bunch of searching and tinkering to make the user interface satisfactory. She's avoiding Windows 11 for as long as possible.

People are creatures of habit. Microsoft learned this when they removed the start button in 8.

Here's the most crucial point: windows has the most thoroughly documented friction. If you ever have a problem, chances are 1,000 or more other people have had that problem, or a closely related one, and 1 or 2 of them even wrote about it somewhere. Life is way harder than it needs to be, but you are not even remotely alone.

Apple takes the opposite approach: walls instead of friction. If you can't figure it out, it's because you computer can't do it. That implies your computer shouldn't be able to do it. You would be surprised at how comfortable people are with this conclusion. It doesn't get them what they want, but it saves them time and energy by providing early and confident rejection.

Linux maximizes the ability to manage friction. There is always a way to actually resolve it with constructive effort. That's an unfamiliar strategy, and it requires some level of education that the average user refuses to accommodate, even if it will definitely save them time and effort.