I moved back with my mom for a convalescence there in 2005; she (as were many others) was paying a local 'ISP' $9.99-24.99 for about 10hrs/month of 56k dial-up on a thoroughly-adware/spyware-infected Windows box. Even without pop-up hell, she was (of course) unable to even keep up with e-mail and bills with a mere 2.5hrs/week online. I cajoled her onto unlimited DSL for around $25.00/mo., cleaned up her machine (ie wiped and reinstalled XP, AV and firewalled it, and found her copies of 'Internet for Dummies' and 'PCs for Dummies'. My mom's not stupid, but she (like so many others, in rural PA especially) was just daunted by her computer, wanted the convenience etc that it purported to offer, but was afraid to wade in and learn at risk of 'messing something up'. With that as an approach to the mysteries of Windows computing, it's easy to see how arcane a Linux OS (and it's care and feeeding) must be to many.