The whole point of the RPi is to hack, if it's just a way to get a cheap, regular computer then a good part of the appeal is gone.
Linux is used in far more circumstances than Windows and is just as capable as windows when it comes to 99% of tasks.
Buy Linux on an Ubuntu certified pc and you will have zero issues.
In reality most consumers don't use more than a web browser.
To take an example: building a Mame box. On Windows it's a major PITA because replacing the windows shell to start directly Mame is a big hack, because you need to configure Mame in command line / editing text file which is a pain on Windows, because you can't just ssh to edit config files from a regular laptop, etc. On Linux it's much easier, and you end up with a clean configuration that does just what you need.
But you know what? People still use Windows on their Mame cabs because it's their confort zone.
But that's hardly a carrot when it comes to learning CS/Programming. Whether you were to learn on Windows or *NIX it takes a lot of non-intuitive steps too get going.
When I started to learn python I used notepad on Windows and ran it on the command line, I soon switched to Linux and wrote my scripts in gedit and ran the programs on the command line.
The learning curve was about the same. It seems to me that a lot of the skills you learn on Linux when it comes to programming can be applied to windows (you just have to learn their GUI), but methods learned in windows generally can't be applied to other OSs.
Linux developers should also consider that the "hackable system" feature is only one of many features that people consider when choosing an OS. It might be good to add a few more carrots to Linux rather than beating people with sticks for not using free.