There is some real competition in the OS space now.

• Microslop (Microsoft) is shooting themselves in the foot by forcing decisions down everyone’s throat.
• Apple released the MacBook Neo, an entry level laptop to entice people into their ecosystem.
• Valve has made gaming viable on Linux, which also highlights Linux as a general purpose OS to a broader audience.

However, I don’t want to talk about subjective perspectives. For example, someone might actually like forced updates. I don’t know. I’m not a masochist.

Rather than convincing individuals to change their preferences, I want to analyze systematic structures that can have a broader impact on how people interact with their computers.

First off, an operating system is not profitable. You have to constantly fix it, maintain it, and add new features. Users constantly expect it. There’s a reason that planned obsolescence is a thing for Android and iOS. Even if Windows 10 was supposed to be the last version, Windows 11 was launched because of this (now you know why TPM is an arbitrary requirement). However, as a loss leader, an operating system is the gateway drug to sell you subscription services. Microsoft being the dominant player has constantly pushed you towards OneDrive, Office 365, and now AI. Apple will eventually do the same, if they aren’t already. Apple may not seem like it’s enshittifying today, as it’s currently subsidizing costs to attract users frustrated with Windows into its ecosystem, but one day its shareholders and partners will come knocking.

Next, computer manufacturers are trying to respond to the MacBook Neo. Some YouTubers have pointed out that some hardware manufacturers haven’t given them products because they did not want to be compared to the MacBook Neo. Windows has a $100 license fee. Mac OS only exists for Apple. What’s left? Linux. Companies can even customize Linux to cater to their users’ needs, if needed.

On the gaming front, Valve is actively trying to push gaming on Linux. When Windows 8 first launched, Valve clearly saw the new Windows store as a threat to their business model. Apple’s app store was even more restricting, so Linux it was. Fast forward 10 years, and Steam hardware is rivaling traditional consoles. I’m honestly quite amazed at Valve’s engagement with the FOSS community, but financially it makes sense. Valve has no idea how to make an OS, so funding FOSS developers was the next best thing. FOSS developers are very passionate about their project after all!

In Android land, Google has also announced that it will be merging Chrome OS into Android. A major shift as Google is trying to use Android’s popularity to get into the desktop market. It has always had its sight on the desktop market ever since it launched Chrome OS, but was never truly able to penetrate deeply due to Microsoft’s dominance. My guess is that Google will push for an Android phone to also be your laptop/desktop. Basically a 3-in-1 device. In the future, other companies may also expand into a 6-in-1 device where it becomes a phone, laptop, desktop, smartwatch, VR headset, and a tablet. But that’s just speculation based on the progress of how foldables are going.

In geopolitics, Linux and other FOSS projects are making inroads in Europe. Unless something major happens, Trump will be the president for three more years. That means at least three more years of hating on Europe. American tech companies will cater to Trump’s attitudes and Europe will have to respond with digital sovereignty. And there’s two approaches that are currently happening. One, creating their own big tech solutions, which personally I don’t think is the correct answer as that’s how the original mess happened. And two, it is to rely on FOSS solutions like Linux.

Finally, there is no one major player dominating Linux. People have constantly complained about the sheer amount of variety in Linux distributions. But that’s its strength. The GPL license, in contrast to permissive licenses like BSD and MIT, will ensure that Linux is always decentralized in nature. Don’t like Ubuntu adding AI? Switch to Arch. Don’t like Arch’s verbosity? Switch to Linux Mint. Hate how Linux Mint is too outdated? Switch to Alpine. The world’s your oyster. You actually have a choice and no one company/individual can take that away.

These are all reasons why I think Linux will grow.

Now that I’ve set the stage on Linux’s trend, I want to see how it’d look in the future. It seems that the best way to model growth is something called the sigmoid function. In short, growth is initially exponential, and at a certain point, called x0 (pronounced “x naught”. Supposed to be x subscript 0.), it starts to slow down. Zoom out and the overall shape will look like an S.

There are some things that could turn this trend around. One is for Microsoft to stop shooting themselves in the foot, but that will never happen because of the amount of money being turned into AI. Another way is for Microsoft to turn Windows into a Linux distribution. Yep, you heard that right. Again, the operating system is not profitable. Someone has to maintain it, someone has to fix the bugs, and someone has to cater to the customers that complain. Linux already does that for free (as in beer). Microsoft can then continue to sell services. However, if Windows ever does turn into a Linux distribution, I highly doubt it would be considered one. Just like Android, it probably won’t contribute to the wider ecosystem and will always look to further control the narrative. I mean, companies are designed to rake in as much money as possible and the best way to do that is by siloing their userbase. And yes, if you were wondering about Android translation layers for Linux, there are a couple out there: Android translation layer and Waydroid. If Android were truly Linux, there would be no compatibility layer.

Why Companies Enshitify

At a high level, companies “enshittify” because of structural incentives. It’s a natural consequence of trying to maximize profit. That sounds obvious, but it helps to think about it more like an ecosystem than a moral failing. Different systems behave according to their underlying incentives.

In this ecosystem, I see two opposing forces. One system is driven to continuously accumulate resources. The other is driven to minimize effort and make the most of what already exists. In software, companies tend to align with the first: they constantly ship new features, even if those features create new problems that can later be monetized. Free and open source software (FOSS), in contrast, often reflects the second: doing as much as possible with as little as possible.

In history, we’ve seen this play out repeatedly. Projects like KHTML quietly shaped modern browsers, and BSD heavily influenced systems like macOS. Yet the pattern is consistent: permissively licensed work gets absorbed into proprietary ecosystems, and the original contributors rarely benefit proportionally. The greedy system always takes, integrates, and builds closed layers on top. And that’s whats rewarded.

That’s why licensing matters. Permissive licenses (like BSD or MIT) allows anyone to take open work and close it off to others. Copyleft licenses (like GPL or MPL) take a different approach: they restrict that specific freedom in order to preserve the right for anyone to view, modify, install, and run the software(side note: Linus Torvalds would like to disagree here, but that’s what the license states. Unfortunately Linus is single handedly allowing planned obsolescence to occur, instead of forcing hardware manufacturers to allow users to unlock their Android bootloaders.). By requiring derivatives to remain open, they prevent the original work from being absorbed and locked away.

This is the “paradox of tolerance” in software form.

Systems create behaviors and repeated behaviors create morals. What system would you like to create to get behaviors and morals that you would like to see? I hope to generally explore this question more in a future blogpost.