[Margaret Pilkington]

The vast majority of people who use computers know very little about operating systems......not anywhere near enough to make informed decisions.
They have 'grown up'(and I mean that in the technical sense rather than the chronological sense) with Microsoft products and find anything else slightly alien to them....I think this is definitely true of the older end of computer users...we(I include myself in this because I fit into that category) prefer to use what we know....what we are used to......because we don't know any different.
Computers arrrive ready for use with an operating system.....and while you sound very computer savvy and could probably adapt any computer you owned to an operating system that you feel is safer/more acceptable/fits the bill....while we can't do that.....because we do not know how to.

Pesonally, I am just grateful if the darned thing works when I switch it on.