A few things (disclaimer, I‘m both a Linux and mac user. Linux on my gaming machine, mac on my work machines):

• Privacy is a big factor. Microsofts track record is bad, even among non FOSS companies.

• Bloatware and Ads. Microsofts insistence on pushing OneDrive, Edge, 365 and bing are annoying to say the least. Why do they think I’m going to change my mind about that after a minor update?

• The UX is less than stellar. Why does the OS have 4 different UI styles for different programs that sometimes even do almost the same thing but not entirely, so you’ll have to use both versions?

• It’s almost impossible for me to keep my desktop tidy short of not using it. I’m dependent on macOS stack feature. On Linux I never had enough random files for it to be a problem.

In short, Windows just annoys me. While Linux and macOS go out of my way and let me just do my stuff, Windows just constantly pulling my attention away from what I advertised want to do and that was even when I was using my PC solely as a gaming machine.

Edit: formatting

Of course. Silly me. I‘m not an native speaker, so excuse my mistake.

So my instinct was right but my judgement was not.

No, “an” is correct, since the next word begins with a vocal sound.

Although it would be funny if that’s just a troll.

What?

I think Mint is mostly for the “I have a PC that’s a few years old and want something easy and reliable to replace Windows with” crowd. Because it works great for that. It’s the perfect beginner distro.

Still is and still gets actively developed. The best free video transcoding software, if not the best in general.

Had that as well on macOS. Problem went away when I switched the system from dark mode to light mode (or the other way round, don’t remember). But generally, I have to use Premiere for work anyways. For personal projects I prefer DaVinci Resolve though because, in my experience, it’s the most stable and performs the best of any program I’ve tried.

And gimp is still terrible, while, in my limited experience, kdenlive is very useable.

I can send money for free but only within 2-3 business days or to accounts at the same bank. Instant transfer to different banks costs 49ct

Once Linux is up and running it’s up and running. If I want to use crypto I have to go out of my way to use it for every transaction. I switched to Linux once Windows got more annoying than Linux was.

Fair. That’s partially why I use Linux while most people are still stuck with Microsoft.

Don’t get me wrong, crypto definitely has its uses. But other than national or international transactions that I‘d prefer to be untraceable, from a European perspective, it seems to be too unwieldy for day to day use. At least for the foreseeable future.

I use PayPal because it quicker and easier than grabbing cash from an ATM or to pay online. I use Apple Pay, because it’s quicker and easier than searching my wallet. Crypto would ad at least a step or two to any of those processes. It’s neither quicker nor easier.

They don’t. They could maybe. But I want an easy solution to transfer money to people and pay online. Crypto is not that solution because I cannot pay with it in most online shops and I cannot send money directly to other people. The money has to be exchanged to some arbitrary other currency.

Unless everybody used crypto as their main currency and everybody used the same cryptocurrency at that, it’ll always be an extra step, subject to fluctuations in exchange rate and possibly fees/taxes. As long as that’s not the case, it’s not an alternative. So yes, it’s an adoption problem but one that isn’t realistically solvable any time soon

And then, who says what crypto will be used? Bitcoin, Etherium, Monero, Dogecoin, any of the other dozens?

then you would be an early adopter and very likely end up very wealthy

So it is speculative.

You can buy anything from anyone, anywhere, in the world at any time without permission

And should I feel the need to buy something from somewhere I need permission for, I will consider getting some crypto. Haven’t had a situation yet where cash didn’t suffice though.

It’s an extra step. Two extra steps actually. I can go to the store and pay or I can exchange official currency to crypto and then exchange it again to giftcards. It’s good that the possibility exists, since it’s de facto untraceable but it’s inconvenient, slower and frankly unnecessary for most people.

I don’t think I could buy my groceries with crypto if I wanted to. What supermarket takes crypto? My phone provider wouldn’t either and my insurance is deducted directly from my paycheque because that’s just how it works here.

But why should I base my shopping habits around a currency/platform when I could just use one that almost everyone takes. When I want to order off a random online shop, I do not want to think about whether they’ll even take the money I have.

I know one person who owns crypto, no shops that take it and I know of too many people who speculate with it. If it is the future of finance, that future is still fairly far away.