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Despite Linux being free, most people remain on Windows due to five key friction points: deep familiarity with Windows from school and work, dependency on Windows-specific apps like Microsoft Office and Adobe tools, gaming and creative software being Windows-first, hardware driver compatibility issues with printers and peripherals, and workplace or school IT environments built exclusively around Windows. The core argument is that switching costs — in time, learning, and compatibility — outweigh the financial savings for most everyday users.

5 reasons most people stick with Windows, even though Linux is free

Lonely Programmer

driver issues is a big one for me, i dont want to spend 2 hours per driver per device just to make them work

I think it depends on the person. I think your lifestyle plays a factor in your Linux experience.
If you’re the sorta person who doesn’t like change, neither Linux or MacOS likely seem like viable options to you.
If you’re the sort to opt for flashy or mainstream peripherals that only have drivers for Windows, yeah you might have to give those up.
If you use an NVIDIA GPU (depending on the generation), you might have some additional friction while getting up and running.
If your someone who plays one of the 355 games known to be outright broken on Linux (protondb), and the none of the other ~120,000 games in the steam catalog interest you, yeah gaming will seem nonviable.
I use Linux both at home and at work. It works far, far better for me than Windows did. I’ve personally given up nothing since I switched to Linux, and I think it’s likely the fact that I’m also super particular about hardware, peripherals, and the sort of games and software I’m willing to install and use play a factor in that ease of use.
Even at work, the only thing I’ve to find a work-around for (due to lack or caring to looking) is the ability to screen-cast to our TVs (but screen-sharing works fine).
For me, software development on Windows was a nightmare. MacOS was fine, but Linux has been by far the best experience out of the three, and I hope the day never comes where I’m forced to go-back to Windows.

I use Linux for 20 years or so and the last 10 years I never had any issue at all. Even with laptops, never an issue. Also my HP printer, scanner etc. works. The main reason people still use Windoze I think is because they don’t know better and all computers come with Windoze pre-installed. People just don’t care to change. They just want to use it.

From my experience, I started with Windows, but soon after, I felt like working on Windows sets me difficulties, and with Linux in general, I can easily install whatever I need + the flexibility that I can fully customize workspace to my needs, which is not doable on Windows. I did try to go back to Windows at some point using WSL, but after 2 months of using it all of my files got corrupted, and I was never able to fully customize my workspace on windows as I wanted so I am using Linux again, and I do not plan to change it any way sooner. When I want to use windows which is for me just to play video games sometimes I still have dual boot and can do it any time.

Windows controls the pipeline, just like Adobe does: school -&gt; secondary school -&gt; workplace -&gt; home
Apple has a similar but smaller foothold in the creative sphere.
The key to widespread Linux adoption begins with schools.
Universities are also prime candidates for Linux adoption BUT the community is largely online or hidden away in local usergroups or SysAdmin professional orgs.