I don’t think it’s a stretch. I’ve been using both for >15-20 years.

Lots of people don’t even know how to install windows. While linux is easier to install IMO (and has been for years) I’d say a significant amount of the population doesn’t even know how to control computer boot behaviour. Linux is not preinstalled on a significant amount of computers due to Microsoft’s monopoly on the PC market. After you get past this, everything looks different. SameButDifferent.gif.

KDE Plasma for example, sure it looks close at a glance but the icon is different for the menu. This is enough to trip up some. Dolphin looks similar but behaves a bit differently than Explorer. “I want to install adobe photoshop. Hey, why can’t I open this installer?” - how software is managed on Linux is quite a bit different since windows still doesn’t really have a good package management method.

Then hardware compatibility, distro choice, and stability. I’ve been running nvidia for years and I cannot tell you how many times I’ve rebooted my various systems over the years after patching it and I’m greeted by a shell and an error message. Good luck, majority of the population.

I can’t tell you the amount of hours I’ve burned trying to fix my GUI using a spare computer or my cell phone to look up error messages.

Of course, for all those instances there are computers that work just absolutely flawlessly. But the software and DEs all still have some of a learning curve.

That all said, most people will just see the firefox icon and be like “durr - internet!”