Most people who consciously prefer 'desktop Linux' do so not because it's based on the Linux kernel. They do so because it feels better to use than alternatives. And the reason a Linux desktop feels better to use goes understated because it seems 'political' and the people who have explicitly advocated for it most visibly have been smeared as extremists, ideologues, etc. But it's clear: using a system comprised as far as practicable of free software is refreshing, because it provides respite from the artifice, malice, and opacity of big tech products. It's a lost treasure from a forgotten world.
Chromebooks are so thoroughly productized that they have very little to do with what most 'Linux' advocates really like about Linux. We should wake up and recognize ourselves as advocates of software freedom, user choice, community-driven development, and a particular free software ecosystem, instead of getting into nonsense arguments about 'what is really Linux'. The same goes double for similar discussions that crop up around Android, which is as productized as ChromeOS but additionally much more locked down, further alienating it from the actual virtues that make good Linux experiences good.
I find this a very strange response, because while I can't really argue against any of it, it reads to me not as an answer but as a passing comment, tangential to what I was writing about that intersects with it almost incidentally.
There are big issues here but I am not sure that our views overlap by more than a wafer-thin ellipse.
One question: does it really matter why people use it?
Another: which is more important, the people who use it for political or ideological reasons, or the ones who use it from pragmatism?
Another: does it maybe matter how many use what form, than why they do it?
For 3 decades or so, there have been 2 main camps in the FOSS world, which is why the term "FOSS" was invented. One camp is the GNU folk, the Free Software types. The other is the Open Source folks.
Free Software: purity is more important than functionality. Don't use anything non-Free.
Open Source: what's important is that it works and does the job. Try to keep it all Free but if the choice is not working or not being free, it's more important that it works.
Fair so far?
This split exists in Linux.
So, for example, some distros (Ubuntu, Mint, and others) include proprietary blobs and drivers because without them it won't work on most computers.
Other distros (Fedora, Debian) don't. If you have problems getting it working, tough. Try a wired Ethernet connection. Try a USB wifi dongle. It's more important to them that it's all Free, but they may include non-free firmware in some versions or as extras.
Other distros refuse that, and purge the whole codebase of all BLOBs: Trisquel, Purism Pure OS. They accept and embrace that this choice means restricted hardware choice, and you may have to build computers specifically to run them.
But the thing is that now there's a 3rd kind of Linux. Linuxes that don't even claim to be a Linux, corporate products that happen to be based on Linux, but don't mention it, and are sold to the public as appliances, devices that work and let you use the Internet, and who cares how it works underneath.
Android, ChromeBooks, ChromeCast, etc.
And the thing is, these are way more successful. Billions of people use them and don't care what they run.
As a result, some of the changes have filtered back up the software chain and now desktop Linux is way more viable than it was, and a lot of stuff mostly just works.
But the two FOSS camps unite over this: these things Do Not Count and are not considered Real Linux.
I think market success matters more than ideology. We can say that it's arrived and it's practical and usable because hundreds of millions of people buy this kit every year and just get on with using it and enjoying it, and they don't care -- and don't need to care -- if it's FOSS software underneath.
Chromebooks are so thoroughly productized that they have very little to do with what most 'Linux' advocates really like about Linux. We should wake up and recognize ourselves as advocates of software freedom, user choice, community-driven development, and a particular free software ecosystem, instead of getting into nonsense arguments about 'what is really Linux'. The same goes double for similar discussions that crop up around Android, which is as productized as ChromeOS but additionally much more locked down, further alienating it from the actual virtues that make good Linux experiences good.