Does the user have any control of the operating system on an iPad? Why should Windows hardware be any different? You are making a contradictory argument.
What has happened is that the computer has changed, it is no longer the big old tower but mobile phones, tablets and laptops. And the laptop and tablet space is already merging as laptops that has a touch display or a tablet with a keyboard.
Where the tower could be upgraded part by part including the operating system, the new type of computer doesn’t. The consumer usually buys a new one within a few years. This is where Windows 11 fits in.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you rent your computer in the future, you already have phones, which is a computer, with carrier subscription. This will of course also reduce user control even more. Combined that with the cloud computing and your computer is more of a client on a corporate controlled network.
My point is that if users feel their OS is more and more hostile, they will slowly start migrating away. Going towards Apple is a disaster from the point of view of open systems. Nevertheless, this is where people will mostly go. Only power users can allow themselves to migrate to open systems like Linux, BSD and more exotic ones.
Sure, but your comment didn't make much sense if switching to an iPad was an improvement in regards to hostility, logically that would mean that Windows should behave just like an iPad, i.e. no control.
What Windows "suffers" from is that it is still in a transitive state going from an open platform (open in the sense the user decides what to run & install) to a closed platform (the iPad).
Traditional desktop users expect an open platform and thus gets annoyed over forced updates, stores and similar things, but those things is considered normal on closed platform.
The thing is that the traditional desktop user is vanishing, as your parents are an examples of. The "market" wants a closed system, thus Windows is adapting. Eventually Windows will have completely moved to a closed platform and will be used and viewed as iPad or similar (the Xbox is already such a device) and the annoyances will no longer be annoyances.
Yes, the traditional PC user will be migrating to Linux & BSD, but they will be such a small number globally it will be a rounding error, and eventually it will be harder & harder to stay on those platform when the hardware industry is entirely serving the closed platforms.
> Yes, the traditional PC user will be migrating to Linux & BSD, but they will be such a small number globally it will be a rounding error, and eventually it will be harder & harder to stay on those platform when the hardware industry is entirely serving the closed platforms.
I think there is some hope as the example of Valve shows.
What has happened is that the computer has changed, it is no longer the big old tower but mobile phones, tablets and laptops. And the laptop and tablet space is already merging as laptops that has a touch display or a tablet with a keyboard.
Where the tower could be upgraded part by part including the operating system, the new type of computer doesn’t. The consumer usually buys a new one within a few years. This is where Windows 11 fits in.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you rent your computer in the future, you already have phones, which is a computer, with carrier subscription. This will of course also reduce user control even more. Combined that with the cloud computing and your computer is more of a client on a corporate controlled network.
The PC, Personal Computer, is dead.