WEBVTT

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For decades, we've joked, "Is this the

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year of the Linux desktop?" And to a lesser degree, is Apple finally sick of

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selling iPods with cellular modems and ready to take a bite out of Microsoft's

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desktop market share. But it's always been just that, a joke. Even within the

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niche communities that embrace Windows alternatives, the year of is less of an

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optimistic projection of future success and more of a masterpiece of

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self-deprecating observational humor that we've spent so long debating the

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timeline for this grand event that even the deepest believers are no longer sure

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that it's ever going to happen. Because in spite of every monumental improvement

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in the competition, not to mention in spite of every Microsoft stumble,

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Windows remains as dominant as ever. Or

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does it? I say it doesn't. And not only

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are the cracks appearing, but they're starting to widen in a way that could

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put the critical mass that drives widespread adoption just around the

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corner. So, it might not be the year of the Linux desktop, but seeing one

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colossal failure after another, it's starting to feel like the year of

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Windows humiliation. And I think that Microsoft knows it. My proof, Microsoft

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themselves, they're not stupid. They see all the same signs that I do. And after

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years of Windows and crapification, they finally dropped the facade and published

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an open letter to the community promising to do better this time. Please

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take me back. So, what prompted that?

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Can they turn the ship around or is this all just too little too late? Let's talk

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about what's going on right now and talk about how uncharacteristically seriously

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Microsoft is treating it. And let's talk about our sponsor,

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linked down below. I want to get this out there before we go any further. As a

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lifelong user, I certainly have my share of gripes with Windows, but I'm also no

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hater and for every complaint is also a

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counterpoint. I mean, sure, search is a giant swimming pool full of dog water,

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but how about firing up compatibility mode and running software from my

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childhood? That's outstanding. So, I'm not rooting for Windows to lose. I'm

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just observing that if nothing changes, that could be an inevitable outcome. And

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before you say that's crazy, history is kind of on my side here. Once upon a

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time, Windows web servers were a thing. Now, the most recent data from W3X has

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it at less than 10%. And that's just one

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of the platform wars that Microsoft has lost over the years. According to the

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New York Times, in 2007, Microsoft was estimated to have over 60% market share

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in pocket PCs. Now, that's a big fat

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zero. But that was the past. Let's talk

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about the now. Going across the major Windows user groups, starting with

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gamers. I know that not everyone plays games, but gamers are a loud and

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therefore disproportionately important demographic because a loud audience can

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work both in your favor and against it.

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On the surface, there's not a ton of danger signs here. Thanks to its broad

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support for most titles, its often lower prices, and its unparalleled access to

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modding tools that enhance the gaming experience, learning to navigate the ins

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and outs of Windows has become something of a right of passage for young PC

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gamers to feed their habit. And once they're on the Windows platform, many

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gamers end up stuck due to kernel level antiche and copy protection systems that

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either only work on Windows or that developers choose to only implement on

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Windows. And yet gamers are leaving

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Windows in numbers that we have never seen before. Tom's Hardware observed

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last year that while Linux market share was languishing for years in the 1%

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range, 2022 marked a significant turning

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point with Linux then surpassing 2% sometime in 2024 and 3% in 2025.

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What happened to build this momentum? Well, I'll tell you. After the

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catastrophic launch of the original Steam OS, a Linux- based Windows

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competitor back in 2015, Valve spent

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just about the next 10 years quietly funding the development of the Proton

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compatibility layer, a software that translates Windows Direct 3D API calls

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over to Vulcan, an openstandard graphics API that runs crossplatform, including

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on Linux. This development finally came to light alongside the Steam Deck, a

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Linux-based handheld gaming PC running Steam OS 3.0. To say that the gaming

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world was blown away would be a gross understatement. For the first time, any

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random normie could quite literally pick up a Linux gaming PC, find a Windows

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game, and press play. It didn't work all

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the time, but the intrepid open source gaming community, now with deep pocketed

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corporate backing, saw an opportunity and has been hard at work taking

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everything that's great about Steam OS and the Steam Deck and making it

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accessible across a wider range of hardware through gamerfriendly Linux

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distros like Basite and Catchio OS.

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Meanwhile, Microsoft has been doing seemingly everything in its power to

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turn Windows into a giant ad for One Drive, Xbox Game Pass, and Edge Browser.

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Ads that I can't simply dismiss and then never see again. I think this Reddit

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user put it better than I ever could. Stop asking me. The answer is the same

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as last time. So, while Valve is only

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estimated to have sold somewhere in the neighborhood of about 4 million Steam

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Decks, the groundwork that they laid has resulted in an explosion of Linux usage

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amongst gamers with the latest Steam survey putting Linux at about 5% market

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share for the first time in history. Now, there does appear to be some

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sampling irregularities that led to such a sudden jump, but the overall trend is

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still crystal clear.

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Breaking news, editor. No idea where you're going to put this, but Framework

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just announced that for their new Framework 13 Pro laptop, the Ubuntu

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version is out selling Windows.

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Windows use is eroding and Linux use is growing and Microsoft is clearly taking

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drastic measures to stop the bleeding. The most obvious example has got to be

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the new Xbox fullcreen experience or Xbox mode that Microsoft developed to

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provide a more seamless gaming experience on handheld PCs like the ROG

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Xbox Ally X that they co-branded alongside ASUS in late 2025. It pairs

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down system resource usage, particularly system memory significantly, and makes

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the whole operating system much easier to navigate with a controller. And it's

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coming to a desktop near you. This is

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very exciting stuff, but it also raises a big question. Why now? Microsoft has

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owned the Xbox brand for nearly 25 years. At any point, they could have

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taken what they learned there and then stripped the Croft out of Windows to

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provide a better experience. But they chose not to until they were forced into

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action. To be clear, I'm not complaining. Progress is progress. And

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this is a perfect example of why I don't fanboy for any one side. and I only

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fanboy for competition. But on that subject, let's talk about user group

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number two, where Microsoft still isn't getting much competition, and that's in

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pre-built systems. All right, give me a tier one PC builder.

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>> Find me a Linux system on their website. To their credit, they do have them, or

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they have one anyway. But tell me this,

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why is it buried three pages deep in the options for this tower? And why is it

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priced so poorly compared to these deeply discounted Windows machines? I

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thought Windows costs extra. Well, it does, except that Microsoft has

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powerful marketing programs that strongly incentivize their partners to

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position their products more prominently. Anti-competitive,

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maybe. I'm not an antitrust lawyer, though. Is it effective, though?

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Absolutely. So, we're probably not going to see much erosion on that side unless

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something dramatically changes. HEY, WHOA, WHOA. HEY, what's going on here?

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What's going on? Is the sleeping giant

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has awakened. While Apple's Mac product

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line has been treated like something of a red-headed stepchild ever since the

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iPhone completely took over Apple's balance sheet, their share has been

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slowly but surely growing and in my opinion is on the verge of a major

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breakout. Apple silicon was one of the keys giving Certino complete control

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over their performance profile, supply chain, and margins. And while they were

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content to keep things mostly status quo for a few years, the launch of the M4

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Mac Mini was a huge turning point in my eyes. Suddenly, the same company that

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used to sell $700 wheels for their desktops had a great generalpurpose

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desktop for less. Then they followed

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that up more recently with the MacBook Neo, an incredible $600 laptop using

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their last gen phone chip whose success has surprised even Apple. And did I

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mention it's only $500 for students in schools? With Apple suddenly

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aggressively pursuing volume while the rest of the industry is reeling from

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pricing shocks due to DRAM and storage shortages. I mean, no amount of

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Microsoft writing checks to Dell or Lenovo is going to suppress that

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competition for mainstream consumers. Their sales partners are going to do

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what they do best and secure large corporate deals for fleet machines, but

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it's going to get harder. And already I'm seeing feedback that the MacBook Neo

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has changed the competitive landscape for good in a way that I'm sorry, but

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Snapdragon Windows ARM laptops just aren't going to be enough to counter.

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And all of this is against a backdrop of Microsoft's traditional customers being

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desperately ready for change. I've talked about how Linux is chipping away

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at mind share among gaming enthusiasts, but both Mac and Linux are now strongly

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positioned for other types of enthusiasts, AI enthusiasts, software

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development enthusiasts, freedom enthusiasts, privacy enthusiasts, value

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enthusiasts. I mean, these are just some of the passionate user bases that have

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become so disenfranchised to the point

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where they will openly admit to only using Windows because I have to. To be

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clear, Microsoft is doing stuff on top of the Xbox stuff I mentioned. They've

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committed to pulling unnecessary copilot AI cruff out of tools like snipping tool

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and finally fixing search, not to mention allowing the taskbar to be

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repositioned. But all of these things raise the same question I asked before.

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Why did this course correction take so bloody long? It is better late than

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never. Even as I was writing this video

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from my MacBook Neo, I found myself tempted by Microsoft's efforts to win me

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back. And they have enormous inertia. So

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the year of macOS or the Linux desktop, it's probably not this year and probably

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isn't next year either. But staying afloat the way they have isn't a given.

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Just because the Titanic didn't sink in 30 seconds doesn't mean that it didn't

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eventually sink. And Microsoft's iceberg is clearly on the horizon. But only time

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is going to tell if they can avoid it. What I know that they can't avoid is

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If you guys enjoyed this video, why not check out the one we did on the

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announcement of the ROG Xbox XLI XROG,

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uh, whatever. We showed the new interface. It's legitimately pretty