> people immediately notice that the UI looks different and immediately panic as to how to achieve their current tasks
This was probably a bigger problem 10 years ago than it is now. Plenty of people never do anything at all with their computer besides opening a browser. No matter what OS you use, "click the Chrome logo" still applies.
I've watched my grandparents use a computer. I guarantee I could swap out Windows for KDE or Cinnamon and, as long as I make the wallpaper the same and I put the Chrome icon in the same place, they wouldn't notice anything had changed. I'm not actually going to do that, because then I become the only person in the family who can tame their computer if it starts acting out, but still.
Also, Microsoft's own UI isn't a steady target. Windows 11 is, dare I say it, more akin to Plasma 6 than it is to Windows 7.
This was probably a bigger problem 10 years ago than it is now. Plenty of people never do anything at all with their computer besides opening a browser. No matter what OS you use, "click the Chrome logo" still applies.
I've watched my grandparents use a computer. I guarantee I could swap out Windows for KDE or Cinnamon and, as long as I make the wallpaper the same and I put the Chrome icon in the same place, they wouldn't notice anything had changed. I'm not actually going to do that, because then I become the only person in the family who can tame their computer if it starts acting out, but still.
Also, Microsoft's own UI isn't a steady target. Windows 11 is, dare I say it, more akin to Plasma 6 than it is to Windows 7.