Look out for any Linux dip in figures, as some people give up trying to use Linux, and move away again. If they hit a tricky problem, and go online for help, some will just scare them away with an over techy response. And they will share their horror story, keeping more people away from Linux.

True. But actually I don't have a car. My last car decades ago, had a cassette player. But that had Auto Reverse. When it reached the end of the tape it would play the other side without you having to eject the tape and turn it over!

My car is so old it makes its own cloud!

No mention of centralised versus decentralised social media. The thing that makes the biggest difference. No ads. No algorithm. No lock in, swap networks keeping friends and followers. Tune your timeline to suit you. Calling everything social media is trash journalism when those issues are already solved. Clearly he has no clue about the topic.

More than a decade ago I joined github among other systems, in order to report bugs to FOSS projects. Now I quit GitHub as it's too risky being on there. So if a project wants bug reports, go somewhere users data is not put at risk. Or go without bug reports.

It's clear we don't want US spyware.

Me in shop: I want to buy a robot vacuum cleaner. Do you have one of those sweary ones?

I might be an idiot, but I'm not going to use a Mac.

This meme also perpetuates the myth that to use Linux you must be an IT person. I just use it as a user.

Great. Now everyone will be copying Apple's foldable idea.

Managing digital information today is a horrible mess of silos and big business driven incompatibilities. It often drives people to use PDFs, as there is nothing appropriate. Blame the software/businesses, not the victims/users.

I blame the Linux gatekeepers, keeping people on Windows. By pushing out misinformation to Linux newbies who ask a question online, and scaring them away.

I agree with the OP. But swap the term "newbie" for "casual user" or "non IT user", and more people would agree. Even the nerdiest IT Pro was a newbie whenever they use a distro for the first time. Avoid the term "normie" too, as people have different ideas of what normal is. There are more non IT, power users who have a deep knowledge of their applications, than all Linux users put together.

So this discussion is all around a sloppy choice of terminology.