There are other perspectives other than yours. I've installed Linux for many people: in fact I have an entire family (three kids, a dad and a mom) using Linux as their daily drivers. Zero complaints.
But I was also smart about what distro I put on their systems. Endless OS or Solus, for example, are not prone to breakage on upgrade.
You've been using Linux for a long-time. You should know that Arch and Ubuntu are not the only two choices in this space.
You should also know that when manufacturers weren't threatened by Microsoft to do otherwise, there was a thriving ecosystem of SFF laptops, netbooks, that shipped delightful Linux distros that just worked. Moblin and Jolicloud were fantastic explorations of UI and OS design that might have been.
Same here, most family (except my brother, but he lives abroad) on Linux and no problems. Even better when I switched them from Debian to Manjaro. Debian is still my favorite for tinkering, but to get things done and general stability there are better options.
And here is our main Linux problem: its fragmentation, which is the natural byproduct of its freedom; everyone and his cat can develop or modify things, which translates in different distributions, which of course is a nightmare if you are a software producer with developers paid to port your software to Linux, and that's why a lot of commercial developers either choose one or max two distributions to support or ignore it at all.
One thing the Linux Foundation could do about that is mandating a minimum set of requirements that all Linux commercial software could count on, and all distributions should meet if they want a badge that guarantees the software will be 100% compatible out of the box, or that the host system can be adapted with extremely low effort.
I'm not sure how much having Microsoft as Platinum Member would help with this, though.
But I was also smart about what distro I put on their systems. Endless OS or Solus, for example, are not prone to breakage on upgrade.
You've been using Linux for a long-time. You should know that Arch and Ubuntu are not the only two choices in this space.
You should also know that when manufacturers weren't threatened by Microsoft to do otherwise, there was a thriving ecosystem of SFF laptops, netbooks, that shipped delightful Linux distros that just worked. Moblin and Jolicloud were fantastic explorations of UI and OS design that might have been.