> The free upgrade was to gain critical mass for the upgrade, they learned with vista, 8/8.1 that users were happy with xp/7 and wouldn't pay to change, even with LTS running out. Free upgrade was a way to convince a lot of those people to upgrade.
That is one of the reasons.
> I wouldn't compare it to Linux being free in any way.
Obviously not, given "Linux" is free as in speech. But free as in beer, when you also take into account things like support, doesn't exist. TANSTAAFL. And with macOS you pay via the hardware.
> (sometimes for 30-60 minutes while it tries to install updates)
On a SSD? Very unlikely, unless you're upgrading to a major version. True, Microsoft could make most of these updates being applied whilst OS is still online.
You can schedule these reboots if you got Pro. macOS also sometimes needs to reboot btw. My Android reboots every week (LOS) for new firmware.
What I said about apps requiring unnecesarily a reboot is true though. It used to be far more pervasive as well.
> Windows store is very far from anything like a linux package manager, and it ties you into their ecosystem without extensibility. Same with Apple. Linux package management is extensible and controllable (get packages from these sources, not those, blacklist this version, etc...) so I wouldn't consider them anywhere remotely equivalent.
Depends if you view it from the eyes of a power user or a casual user. The non-technical user just wants something which works ie. a good UI. App Store and Play Store provide that. Those non-technical users don't give a rat about features like "get packages from these sources, not those, blacklist this version".
> The obvious/known privacy issues in windows 10 can be disabled, but the fact the user has to know about find and run third party, reasonably advanced tools/scripts to stop the operating system from spying and advertising to you is absolutely not acceptable from my perspective.
Yeah, true, though the default settings aren't difficult to apply this is a feature most users won't use (just like "only" 33% of the browsers use an adblocker). That, together with their old model of selling licenses, is their business model.
Its funny how in these last 2 points we both shift from PoV of power user to ordinary user and vice versa.