Last 6 years of Linux market share

Yes, GNU/Linux has a slow steady growth. Windows had >90% market share in 2009, now it has around 72%. Of course, some went to Mac, but many people to gnu/linux, too.

Decade of Linux desktop.

We're getting up there.
It honestly doesn't take much more for the snowball effect to take hold.
Could be interesting to see how proprietary platforms respond to increased adoption. Maybe they'll start removing their ads and surveillance, or even giving their operating systems away altogether (minus the source code, of course.)
- Windows is already basically free using the user as a product
  
  And yet they still charge people for it.
- May be similar to the 3d software world where autodesk created a monopoly and could charge around 5k USD for something like Maya, and then go the adobe route and only rent once innovation dies off. Only when Blender started getting more hype and attention did autodesk start offering cheaper indie versions and licenses.
  
  Believe it or not that initial wave of consolidation brought prices down. A license of SGI Power Animator cost over $30k in the 90s. softImage was not far behind. 3ds Max basically took the fight out of them, at which point Autodesk started going on a buying spree.

The year of the Linux desktop: any year now for the past 10 years.
I'm waiting for the day someone who isn't a nerd and regularly uses Linux.
- Possibly controversial point, but I don't want Linux to go mainstream.
  I like that there are very few viruses developed for Linux. I like that most countries don't regulate Linux in the way that MacOS or Windows are regulated (I live in the EU, so I know a thing or two about regulations). This could potentially make some linux distros unsupported in some regions due to being none-compliant.
  And most of all, I like that Linux apps are mostly Free as in free beer, and a labour of love for all involved.
  All these things would go away if linux were to reach 10-15%+ market share. Is it really worth it to invite all this scrutiny for a chance of having hardware companies make hardware run better on linux?
  
  How do you see Linux being regulated if it grows? I imagine that Windows and MacOS are regulated because they’re for profits that e.g. harvest our data, create proprietary limitations on apps, and so on. Genuinely curious how regulating Linux would look similar - or how it might differ.
  
  There will still be just as many free as in beer linux apps and they will be just as easy to find since you can just turn on the filter for "free and open source" when your searching for an app in flathub or whatever repo and package manager you use, sure more proprietary apps may be developed but the open source ones will be here to stay and could get much more funding from donations if more people joined.
  And I don't think it's about hardware development as that is already here, there are plenty options for hardware on linux and that is not a limiting factor.
  What is a limiting factor (at least for me) is software support and it is the reason I still dual boot windows and linux. I need adobe for my work I know, I hate it too I wish I could use davinci resolve and other alternatives instead but I can't. I am also a gamer and I play with my friends who run windows, I want to have fun with my friends and if a game doesn't run on linux I still want to play the game even if it means using windows.
  If the market share of linux increases then for profit developers will start optimizing applications for it since it will become a major target demographic.
  In terms of viruses and regulation they are both fare points which I agree with you on, but I don't think they outweigh the benifets of having higher user adoption (for me at least)
  I would be interested to know, is software support is ever a boundary to you?

It seems to have plateaued and increasing more slowly.
Look like 1 year "growth then plateau", like 2021-01 to 2022-01. But 2022-05 to 2024-09 linear growth again. Analysis/forecast of human behaviour not easy.
Also combine data of different source not easy, please handle with care.
- Good point, thanks. The way I modeled the adjustment was by assuming that most usage is captured by Statcounter but there's movement back and forth to a reservoir that flies under its radar, in bursts, with zero net movement in the long run. So I used a geometric mean of the source data scaled by the square root of their averaged ratio.

plateaued since when? if you look at the second half of the graph, 2022 forward, it looks more steep to me.
I take it 'geometric mean' is the geometric mean of 'statcounter' and 'steam'? What's the specific source of those latter two measures? For instance, when I look at linux usage on the statcounter website I get more like 1.5%, not 4%.