I'm posting this as more of a "fun thought" than anything else.
It's generally considered a fact that Linux, along with many other open-source software projects, are more efficient than their propriety closed-source counterparts, specifically in terms of the code that they execute.
There are numerous reasons for this, but a large contributing factor is that open-source, generally speaking, incentivises developers to write better code.
Currently, in many instances, it can be argued that Linux is often less power-efficient than its closed-source counterparts, such as Windows and OSX. However, the reason for this lies not in the operating system itself, but rather the lack of certain built-in hardware support for Linux. Yes, it's possible to make Linux more power-efficient through configuring things differently, or optimizing certain features of your operating system, but it's not entirely uncommon to see posts from newer Linux laptop users reporting decreased battery life for these reasons.
Taking a step back from this, though, and looking at a hypothetical world where Linux, or possibly other open-source operating systems and software holds the majority market share globally, I find it to be an interesting thought: How much more power efficient would the world be as a whole?
Of course, computing does not account for the majority of electricity and energy consumption, and I'm not claiming that we'd see radical power usage changes across the world, I'm talking specifically in relation to computing. If hardware was built for Linux, and computers came pre-installed with optimizations and fixes targetted at their specific hardware, how much energy would we be saving on each year?
Nanny Cath watching her YouTube videos, or Jonny scrolling through his Instagram feed, would be doing so in a much more energy-efficient manner.
I suppose I'm not really arguing much, just posting as an interesting thought.
You mention waste, and actually that's another interesting point. It's no secret that Linux words wonders on older hardware, precisely due to its high level of optimization and low storage space requirement. Therefore, it could be argued that using Linux and other FOSS would quite literally reduce the amount of e-waste produced each year, since people would be able to use the same computer for longer.
Absolutely! I’ve setup Linux on older machines and people love it. They don’t have to buy a new computer as they thought they would need to. They’re usually astonished at the difference! Plus people on a very low budget can buy something for like $50 and get the exact same - or better - experience as someone who just spent $1,000 on a new Windows Bloatware machine. For pretty much any needs other than gaming or heavy editing of photo or video, they’re going to be the same speed.
I was running a 13 year old computer for a while and it was absolutely instant for everything. Music, video play, web browsing, email, casual games, etc. all just ran flawlessly, and my desktop was absolute eye candy with KDE and all kinds of custom stuff. Meanwhile Winblows 11 users have fucking anxiety attacks with all the shit that gets shoved in their faces just constantly being interrupted or inconvenienced. For what? Oh and also I was able to use a printer immediately upon plugging in the USB whereas Windows 11 refused to recognize the device no matter what drivers we tried.
lol it’s astonishing and most people have no idea they’re being absolutely ass-raped by Microsoft with their toxic waste OS.
I think that's the big thing. The vast majority of computer users need little more than a bit of word processing, YouTube, maybe some online banking. Beyond that? Nothing at all.
These tasks require such a ridiculously small amount of computing power when compared to other tasks, such as gaming and video editing, that 90% of the power their computer has is just not needed, and is instead being consumed by Windows.
Yup! That’s why Windows and other software has to keep getting more and more bloated. Otherwise nobody would buy newer hardware all the time. I mean there’s always a need for new hardware, but driving the consumerism aspect of it, getting people to waste money en masse, requires creating this false need. It’s absurd, wasteful, despicable and only exists because companies aren’t satisfied with millions when they can get billions.
It also relies on people being complete braindead morons. Hence its success.