[Jtype]

You ignore the points made in the article by pointing out how more people are consumers on their electronic devices today. You point out how this change affected mobile devices and browser based consumption. However computer users are not a monolithic group. This misses the forest for the trees. Sure, a higher percentage of computer device users are there only for consumption, and can easily have their needs met by a modern smartphone or chromebook, but that's not who the article is about.

The article is focused on how the limitations and changes made for consumption computing has affected the OS design and negatively impacted the users who actually need a desktop or laptop, either to produce or as hobby machines. If the OS is constantly changing and degrading, it may not matter that much to those who only really need a smartphone or tablet, but it has a huge impact on the rest.

Desktop and laptop sales have been dropping for years as more consumers realize that their needs can be met by a mobile device, tablet, or chromebook. Sure the changes probably don't mean much to that market, but that market is fading. Making unnecessary changes which interfere with the UI impact the hardcore users, who will be the base of desktop/laptop users in the near future.

Your argument is essentially that since the changes have little impact to those who don't care, that it shouldn't matter to the rest of us. That's pretty dismissive of a large group of users, and a rather useless observation.

[beecafe]

Its the desktop and laptop users who will go extinct. Changes which bother them really don't matter at all.

[navjack27]

But that's who I feel like Windows at least with Windows 11 is making the changes for. well no let me correct myself, they're making changes for convertible laptop users that use touch but they're also making changes for people that don't exist... Actually scratch that I have no idea who they're making these changes for... I keep using my taskbar and my start menu the way I like to use it and I keep wanting to expand my start menu because I pin things to my start menu because that's a thing you can do... But now I have buttons I could press so I could see the next metaphorical page of things that I have pinned... But then I pin things to the taskbar because the desktop is an unusable mess where everything just goes when I install things... So the desktop is disabled so my taskbar and my start menu is my desktop... But the changes they are making make making changes to the taskbar and the start menu impossible... And I don't have a touch screen device but I feel like also using any of this on a touch screen, none of the targets are the right size... So again I'm unsure who they're making this for if the desktop and laptop users are the ones who will go extinct. There are no other users. There are clearly zero users that these changes are for.

[flextheruler]

This might be somewhat accurate for personal computing, but business computing will continue to be done with desktops and laptops for decades. Windows itself is mainly dominant because of its dominance at an enterprise level.

[Jtype]

The entire conversation is about laptop and desktop OSes. The complaint is that all OSes for these devices have changed for the worse and continue to do so. These devices will continue to be produced and used, but by fewer people. These people are the ones who hate the UIs in newer OSes.

Most people may move to iOS and Android, but that's a moot point since those aren't the people or the OSes that the article is about.

[hulitu]

Good luck doing any work on a tablet or phone.