Another fresh month and so we have the latest operating system market share details from Statcounter, and it's another impressive showing for Linux from August 2024.
Covid was a time when many people had their eyes opened to big tech not having good intentions. I wouldn’t be surprised if covid did make a difference. It was a free option and people often had extra time on their hands to tinker. Lots of people changed jobs after as well. None of those mean there would have been a spike necessarily, but may contribute to an increase in adoption rate.
I don’t rule out the possibility that COVID made some people think further on how they interact with software, and that indirectly promoted some Linux usage. However, I don’t think that it would create continuous pressure encouraging adoption, that keeps going on four years later.
Another reason why I don’t think that COVID is the cause is the timing: the “bulk” of the social impact happened in early 2020, but the slope seems to start near the end of 2020, almost early 2021.
Covid was a time when many people had their eyes opened to big tech not having good intentions. I wouldn’t be surprised if covid did make a difference. It was a free option and people often had extra time on their hands to tinker. Lots of people changed jobs after as well. None of those mean there would have been a spike necessarily, but may contribute to an increase in adoption rate.
I don’t rule out the possibility that COVID made some people think further on how they interact with software, and that indirectly promoted some Linux usage. However, I don’t think that it would create continuous pressure encouraging adoption, that keeps going on four years later.
Another reason why I don’t think that COVID is the cause is the timing: the “bulk” of the social impact happened in early 2020, but the slope seems to start near the end of 2020, almost early 2021.