Instead, it's about the irretrievable, sunken costs associated with a loss of incompatible software and hardware that the person would no longer be able to use after switching to Linux.

... When windows has made its latest release incompatible with most existing hardware out there because of some arbitrary requirements. I have not seen any major hardware compatibility issues with Linux in quite a few years now. It is not common at all for some hardware to not work. In less then about a year Windows in going to make a huge amount of existing hardware unusable for supported versions of windows. That alone will help with Linuxs market share.

Most arguments in this article are overblown out very outdated. Software compatibility is a issue, but much less then it used to be. Big companies like Adobe and Microsoft which refuse to support Linux are also starting to alienate their user base making the cost of switching more and more apprising all the while the linux friendly alternatives are growing in popularity. And as I said above hardware is not a big issue these days and about to be a big issue for Windows systems.

It does touch berfily on the main point sa to why linux os not very popular ATM:

Most people don't even know what Linux is because they've never seen it pre-installed on a laptop in a store. But I digress.

That is the problem, defaults. Most people don't care or want to change their OS and most people have hardware and workloads that are easily compatible to Linux. It is really only a minority of people that require things that Windows supports better - sadly those are also the types of people more willing to break from the default OS.

The year of the Linux desktop won't come until we, the Linux community, find a way to balance the cost of switching with the future benefits of daily driving Linux from the perspective of an average user. Until then, Linux will remain more like a niche thing, made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

No it wont. The normal user will only switch when they are forced to by their current system stopping working or new hardware comes with Linux by default. The average user is your aunt how uses their computer to log into facebook or look up recipes online. A professional that requires adobe suite is not an average user and only makes up a tiny fraction of the overall userbase. It would be nice to support their workloads, but even if adobe was fully supported on Linux that would still only be a fraction more users that would be willing to move. For the average user it is the defaults that their system comes with that makes the biggest difference.