I think most people here dont even use PCs, smartphones are used a lot more than that. And those who use PCs, a majority of them use old hardware forcing them to find alternative operating system (I have experienced this personally and has installed mint on PCs of 6-7 peoples like that). I think old hardware is what pushing them to use linux. Moreover, most geeks use either mac or linux until forced by the company to use windows. Its definitely not a regional thing, as far as reputation is concerned, for normal people its just like windows like people who want to edit files, pp presentations, excel sheets, etc all of it is same as windows due to awesome tools like libreoffice. What else people need mostly? linux GUI has evolved enough to help them for all "normal" use cases, otherwise internet is always there. I think it will continue to grow as a result of recent microsoft F ups and as people become aware.