Spending time to configure your OS to your liking is one thing. Having to actively fight all the crap that the OS vendor has jammed into it is quite a bit different.
I don't think the two are equivalent, since one has a much more adversarial flavor to it.
Sure you can. I, as a tech savvy person, can debloat Windows 11. If I dare to do it. If I know I can do it. If I search for information on the internet on how to do it. If I know how to search and follow those instructions. If I follow all the steps (and hope my tutorial covers everything). If Microsoft doesn’t push an update to bloat it again.
And with that, well I still don’t know how to install it without a Microsoft account. It’s so incredibly user hostile that even the insufferable Apple Walled Garden don’t force you into all of this shit.
(Sorry for the ça sarcasm, I know you wanted to be helpful, I already knew that but maybe someone will read your comment and discover it so thank you)
No, but they will lock you out of your account if you have a long gone debit card on there that you don't remember the numbers for or access to that school email your uni yanked back.
I wonder how many college kids got locked out of their iTunes account permanently after they graduated.
When you actually look at those de-bloating scripts or techniques in detail, it's clear that they only barely address the issues with Windows, and they're always chasing a moving target of anti-user bullshit.
You can just skip it and use everything with the distro defaults. it many even be less work than Windows as a lot more software is installed by default on installation.
LoD is _fine_ but not great.
(Slackware 4.0 was great)
But again, why the baseless argument based on hate?
You can (for example) de-bloat Windows 11 out from the telemetry and annoying widgets nobody uses, including the invasive Copilot.
After de-bloating, it's a decent OS on its own.
I should have the right to have a clean Windows out-of-the-box, but de-bloating is still a viable path.