Software-wise, it seems that the relatively fast adoption of flatpaks and other containerized formats somewhat solves the typical dependency hell that was so common in Linux just a few years back (and to some extent still is an issue today depending on your distro and use case). The hardware support side is a little harder. That’s going to be up to vendors to play nice with the Kernel team and/or introduce reasonable userland software that doesn’t break the golden rule. Until Linux gets more market share the latter isn’t likely to happen. A nice side benefit of the emergence of immutable and/or atomic distros is that users can play around and try things with much lower risk of bricking their systems, so I’d also consider that a step closer in the “it just works” department.
Isn’t this almost the inverse argument to the android vs iPhone thing? Like the iPhone being (traditionally) more expensive for the “same technology from 5 years ago”? I don’t really have a horse in this race, I’m a firm believer in use what you like and is easiest/best for you. But I do feel compelled to call this one out a bit.