[robocat]

> where humans can be talked in person for sorting out issues

Like the Geek Squad counter in Best Buy? PC setup $39.99 OS Repair $149.99 (presumably also needs data backup $99.99)

I'm in NZ, and help with Windows is expensive here. I have mostly given up helping friends (many reasons including the "last person to touch it" problem).

[pjmlp]

Good for you if Best Buy does sell laptops with Linux pre-installed, not around here.

[robocat]

Good for you if your friends and family are wealthy enough to pay for support and pay for antivirus subscriptions and pay to upgrade their laptop because their old one has been obsoleted by Microsoft. Microsoft's focus has shifted away from their users.

Linux is a distraction - why do you strawman it? Raw Linux is only to be recommended to very few end users.

The last time I had to support Windows was while I was travelling in Argentina and my father asking for advice about his worry about a virus. His worry was the primary issue, whether he actually had a virus was secondary. There's no way I could safely hand him to a third party to support him (the only third-party people I might trust needed business accounts and had expensive chargeout rates). My answer was change your banking password and "use the iPad I bought you" for any sensitive activities like banking. I couldn't have solved his Windows issue (perhaps didn't exist), nor could I fix his worry. Windows laptop was the cause, and there was no way to work around it. And now he's fighting the side-effects of a forced Windows 11 upgrade.

Windows is an expensive answer, only suitable for a subset of users. Apple and Google have their downsides, but both are less confusing than Windows. Everything has its compromises.