To me personally, the biggest benefit is that I own the system and everything on it.
If MS decides to end support for whatever you're using, you're fucked. If Apple decides your hardware isnt supported any longer, or that you cant use your system without an update that makes your old apps incompatible, you're fucked.
If you're using a product, you rely on it not having its end of life before you stop using it, but you can't actually trust that, and we all know that. You know that, once you're in the MS ecosystem, you are at the mercy at whatever business decision they make for their products. If they decide to force you to pay for something that was free before, or decide that they are going to lock a feature behind paywall, the only reasonable thing is to comply.
Now, you might not care, and, hell, you might think the concept of owning your tools is idiotic anyways.
To get back to my point though - Linux gives hardware I own a system that I control. The OS I use helps me get done what I want to get done, it doesnt get in my way, it doesnt try to persuade me, trick me, sell me something, or anything like it. I like to pick what file browser I use, which browser I use, which keybinds do what - without the system acting like i'm an idiot with messages like "oh, you must have misclicked, im sure you want to use edge, not this 'firefox' garbage".
Do I have to pick which file browser I use? No, and I didn't, I just use the default, because it's good. If the developer of it decides to change it, I dont have to update it, I can use the old one, or use a different one altogether, or change it myself if I have the time.
I like Linux because it doesnt treat me like i'm an idiot, it doesnt treat me like i'm a customer, it doesnt actually treat me in any way at all, because unless i interact with it, it doesnt do anything.
When I need to write a patch, I open my laptop, and its immediately there. I open my messages, open my editor, pull, write the patch, commit, push, and close it. I didn't get a "didnt do AV scan in the last 2 seconds", i didn't get random programs autostarting, I didn't get news on my login screen, I didn't get programs notifying me that "its now up to date", it doesnt force me to update before i shut it down, and I dont have to look at a bunch of "welcome back" and "we hope your day is going great" and "did you know this random fact about a mountain in asia?" on my login screen.
Yet, all of these things happen regularly when I launch my windows machine at work. Yes, they're all small things, but once you're used to your system not nagging you for random shit, you can't help but notice.
If MS decides to end support for whatever you're using, you're fucked. If Apple decides your hardware isnt supported any longer, or that you cant use your system without an update that makes your old apps incompatible, you're fucked.
If you're using a product, you rely on it not having its end of life before you stop using it, but you can't actually trust that, and we all know that. You know that, once you're in the MS ecosystem, you are at the mercy at whatever business decision they make for their products. If they decide to force you to pay for something that was free before, or decide that they are going to lock a feature behind paywall, the only reasonable thing is to comply.
Now, you might not care, and, hell, you might think the concept of owning your tools is idiotic anyways.
To get back to my point though - Linux gives hardware I own a system that I control. The OS I use helps me get done what I want to get done, it doesnt get in my way, it doesnt try to persuade me, trick me, sell me something, or anything like it. I like to pick what file browser I use, which browser I use, which keybinds do what - without the system acting like i'm an idiot with messages like "oh, you must have misclicked, im sure you want to use edge, not this 'firefox' garbage".
Do I have to pick which file browser I use? No, and I didn't, I just use the default, because it's good. If the developer of it decides to change it, I dont have to update it, I can use the old one, or use a different one altogether, or change it myself if I have the time.
I like Linux because it doesnt treat me like i'm an idiot, it doesnt treat me like i'm a customer, it doesnt actually treat me in any way at all, because unless i interact with it, it doesnt do anything.
When I need to write a patch, I open my laptop, and its immediately there. I open my messages, open my editor, pull, write the patch, commit, push, and close it. I didn't get a "didnt do AV scan in the last 2 seconds", i didn't get random programs autostarting, I didn't get news on my login screen, I didn't get programs notifying me that "its now up to date", it doesnt force me to update before i shut it down, and I dont have to look at a bunch of "welcome back" and "we hope your day is going great" and "did you know this random fact about a mountain in asia?" on my login screen.
Yet, all of these things happen regularly when I launch my windows machine at work. Yes, they're all small things, but once you're used to your system not nagging you for random shit, you can't help but notice.
Yeah