For the average desktop user, Linux never had anything to offer over Windows. The last nail in the coffin was obvious to me at the time: Linux didn't make any headway when Microsoft started shoving the first ridiculously-bad versions of Windows 10 down everybody's throat by abusing a security update channel. At that point it became clear that there was simply no demand for Linux in the desktop market except at a niche hobbyist level. Stockholm Syndrome was in full effect among Windows users, and it still is, and, well, I guess that's just the way it goes.

The enshittification of the Internet is even worse, though. I think personalized search and content curation through the use of local AI agents may be the only way to buck that trend.

I want something that will do for companies like Google, Amazon, and the news media what SpamBayes did for email: make it useful again. Local filtering by a tireless and incorruptible proxy whose interests are aligned with my own is the only way forward IMHO. The only question is how long it will take. My rather-useless guess is more than a year, less than ten years.