People will put more effort in installing Windows on the Steam Deck than learning how to use Linux

I think it's probably much easier to follow a guide to boot windows from an SD card than to learn a new OS, even one as user friendly as modern, major Linux distros can be. Just the years of muscle memory alone will probably make it easier to boot Windows.

For you? Maybe.

For the average person. It's a a confusing nightmare where nothing has the same name and nothing is in the same place and none of the programs they want to use work.

Spoken as someone who has never worked tech support a day in their life.

Not even saying Linux specifically, but you don't know users. They have issues with things they should already know how to do, let alone learning new things.

I have not ever run into this "mess" you refer to, but maybe we have different metrics for what is considered a "mess". It also probably helps a great deal that a vast majority of my games are on steam, the next most being all the free games from Epic, and a few on the other major platforms from free games on Prime Gaming.

I play gamepass games via the browser. I understand that this is probably the sticking point for many people who would like to install those games locally instead.

Basic personal computer stuff is no more or less difficult on any modern linux distro than it would be on Windows, except that if a person is used to windows they might need to learn new muscle memory and application names.

I encourage anyone who cares to try to check out Linux. The old "Linux is only free if your time is worthless to you" half-joke isn't really applicable these days-- most distros marketed widely work out of the box, as do most basic "personal computer" type actions.