I would happily submit ALL the time required to set up my perfectly-tailored Linux environment once and have it stay that way, just to not have Windows Update (or a random blue screen or 100% disk utilization etc) make my machine unavailable for 40 min just before a hugely important client demo one more time.

Various Linux distros still have ways to go in terms of polish and stability - but, anecdotally, the only times my Arch + KDE failed were when I did stupid things and went too far with tinkering without thinking.

You can do this with Pro and a group policy setting. Yeah it's not optimal, but most of us that use Windows professionally (IT/Dev at least) already have this set up.

Does that mean that paying for an OS means your time has negative value?

Surely the time spent installing, configuring, and messing around with your personal desktop or laptop after already having paid for a complete OS is tantamount to buying a prebuilt PC, taking it apart, and putting it back together with a few missing screws.

Zero is still greater than any negative number.

The argument is that you will lose relatively less money from the time wasted. So instead of wasting $1000 worth of time, you only are wasting $200 of time.

An operating system that lets you waste less money, means that you will save money. Saving money is what can make purchasing something worth it.

As alluro2 pointed out in another comment on this little chain, you also get to pay less money for the guarantee of control over that configuration.

Phrased another way, you're paying more for a limited set of tools, it's not that you must spend $1000 worth of man hours to configure the minutiae of a Linux system, it's that exploring 100% of the configuration options on Mac (or even windows to a lesser extent) is so limited you only have $200 man hours of total possible configuration space.

Confusing analogy aside, you just have less possible room to move and thus people spend less time moving. That doesn't mean you must move on Linux, just that you have the freedom to do so.

Have you read the article?

Not only you're paying Windows but you have to waste time to disable its antifeatures..

20 years ago windows cost me more time than linux, from what I hear it’s not got any cheaper

That was 15 years ago. Today, it's a big time saver compared to Windows.

Over the last 10 years or so, I'd try out Linux for a week, get frustrated for one reason or another, and then switch back to Windows.

Back in February I decided to try Linux Mint again, and this time it worked, and I haven't switched back to Windows yet. I think Linux is starting to get good, even for someone like me, who doesn't want to become a part-time Linux admin.

(Your joke still made me laugh, for the record)

For basic office tasks and browsing the Internet, Debian stable won't waste your time: it should just work.

Add two HiDPI monitors and you’ll see.

That's also a pathological failure case with MacBook (depending on the trim level of MacBook, you'll run into situations like only 1 monitor working. Or both monitors work, but randomly trade position when the computer wakes from sleep)

That's from Microsoft's and Apple's marketing material, not a reflection of reality.

Windows and macOS have both wasted plenty of my time over the years too!

They suck too of course. But they don't presume to be free, like Linux does.

There are much more time efficient operating systems than Linux, Windows or macOS.

Here's Lars Brinkhoff studying to become a 10x programmer:

https://twitter.com/larsbrinkhoff/status/1642569175657771009

One of the most beautiful things about the open source / Linux world is that you rarely have to learn a new way of doing things, unless you want to. Prefer Gnome 2? Fork it. Not flippant advice -- enough people preferred it that a new community project started. So you can still run the desktop environment you did 15 years ago. That's simply not an option - no matter how many users might want it - with Windows should Microsoft make a decision about the direction of Windows. You will spend time and effort relearning after forced changes.

And the important bit is, you can still run the desktop environment you did 15 years ago AND have current applications and current hardware

that sounds like you either never tried Linux… or maybe sometimes 25 years ago. The reality is (and has been for quite a long time) that Linux actually takes far LESS time than Windows. Heck, when I see the type of shitty problems I hear from Windows users, I wonder why they put up with it.