Not to sound rude but do you know who Richard Stallman is and would you consider him a leader in the GNU/Linux community (yes/no) ? This will allow me to answer your arguments.
Also a phew pointers: * If I say "Privacy is dead" and you want to refute it you must find arguments that enforce that "It's not dead, it's alive and strong" not an argument that sounds like "It's there somewhere languishing before it's death" (Quoting you: You still have a great deal of control) * Thank you for re-affirming that there is data-mining being done on the most widely distributed and beloved distro out there when you said: "Ubuntu is actually putting an end to the data mining in 16.04" that's exactly what I'm talking about... they do it. * "The learning curve isn't bad either"; Ok... we don't have to argue about this one because it's so subjective but I'm 100% sure I was not referring to dragging and dropping. I was referring to making your system "Secure"; what ever that may mean to you. On that note, do you claim I can download ubuntu and make it a "secure" system without command-line? If so, I'd be willing to watch you stream that... and I'm sure thousands are here with me. Linux has GUI and is more user friendly than a phew years back but it's still command-line driven when you really want to get something done. If not convinced, go ahead, trouble shoot any problem you have with the OS and let me know if the solution will come up GUI or command-line based. * Don't recall what it was called... symlinks? idk, maybe, maybe not. But the point is... what ever you do in linux, there is probably an easier way to do it under windows 10 or OSX and that my friend, I believe was the point I was making all along. * Market share is totally relevant. We live and survive by money. Money is the new religion. You are either successful or not depending on your acquisition power... So let's not pretend there's not a big ping elephant in the room. On that same note: ANY businessman would GLADLY ship a system with a FREE OS over one they have to PAY money for. Makes sense? with me so far? On that note... how do you explain Microsoft ships more machines than a free OS? Get real son. * Which part was exaggerated nonsense, by all means, let me know which parts and why.