Technology

I guess it just boils down to how much you accept a company to push you around. For me, the writing was on the wall with Windows Vista, even though I did have a Windows 7 machine/ partition later that actually worked well.

I also gave Windows 8 a chance when it came preinstalled on the notebook I bought, but I hated it. So I finally fully switched there, and no Windows since then (excluding the machines my employers provide, IDGAF about them since I get paid to use them and don't have to administrate those). There is way less need for Windows nowadays, back in the Windows 7 days, you could basically only play Linux native and OpenGL titles, PulseAudio was iffy, Vulkan and by extension DXVK didn't exist, AMD drivers weren't great (AMD had just begun releasing documentation late 2007 and fglrx was a pain), so there were a lot of things that just wouldn't work, and yet switching was possible.

As the author notes, there are way fewer blockers nowadays, and most people are just looking to excuse their complacency. And I think it's fine to be ok with Windows, but then you shouldn't complain too much. Microsoft under Nadella only cares about numbers.