I think it has to do with developers catering to them and then creating things like Wayland which is even more restrictive than Windows is (Windows allows hotkey daemons).
There is a kernel of truth in this but frankly it is overblown. The reality is that this isn't particularly related to the actual inflow of new users, almost nobody uses a (non-ChromeOS) Linux-based operating system on their desktop and the number of people who legitimately have zero technical skills (i.e. the archetypal grandma who uses nothing but facebook and youtube) are not likely to be persuaded because of a fancy new edition of GNOME, especially when it generally requires burning an iso, changing the boot order, maybe disabling secure boot, backing up your data, etc., which is too much for most of them. Rather, it's not actual new users driving the changes, but the perception of DE developers/"the Freedesktop clique" that Linux-based operating systems are in competition with Windows and macOS for those users (which they really aren't) and that the reason consumers choose the latter are because of their allegedly superior GUI presentations (which they really don't). Basically, the changes occur irrespective of whether new users are coming; there aren't really hordes of people rushing over to use Linux-based operating systems anyway.
