Notes ·
The Real Cost of Switching Operating Systems Is Everything You Forgot You Learned
Slashdot asks what it actually costs to switch between Windows, macOS and ChromeOS.
The obvious answer is software.
Maybe the application you depend on does not exist on the other platform. Maybe you have to purchase another license, replace a peripheral or find another workflow.
But I think the real switching cost goes much deeper.
After using an operating system for years, you accumulate thousands of tiny pieces of knowledge:
Where files go.
Which keyboard shortcut closes a window instead of an application.
How screenshots work.
How you install software.
Where passwords live.
Which utilities solve annoying little problems.
How your backups work.
Which file formats you trust.
How your phone talks to your computer.
How you recover something when it breaks.
None of those things individually justify staying with an operating system.
Together they become enormous.
Research into personal file management has even found meaningful differences in how people organize information depending on the operating system and file manager they use. The interface does not merely hold our files. Over time, we adapt our behavior around it. (arxiv.org)
The migration tools themselves reveal the problem.
Apple's Migration Assistant can move documents, photos, email, contacts, calendars, browser bookmarks, Wi-Fi networks and other information from Windows into their corresponding places on a Mac. (support.apple.com)
Google approaches switching almost entirely through the cloud: synchronize Chrome, move files into Drive, sign into the Chromebook and replace traditional desktop programs with web applications where necessary. (support.google.com)
Those tools can move data.
They cannot move muscle memory.
They cannot recreate the collection of tiny utilities installed over a decade, the scripts somebody wrote five years ago, an obscure printer driver, a carefully configured development environment or the instinctive knowledge of where to look when something goes wrong.
There is an economic term for all of this: switching costs.
And switching costs matter because they create lock-in even when nobody explicitly prevents you from leaving. Economic research has found that greater compatibility and data portability can reduce those costs and, under some conditions, improve competition for consumers. (aeaweb.org)
That changes how I think about operating-system competition.
Windows, macOS and ChromeOS are not competing only on what they can do today.
They are competing against the accumulated history each user already has with the computer sitting in front of them.
The longer we use a platform, the more invisible that investment becomes.
Which is probably why the hardest question when considering another operating system is not:
Can the new computer do everything my old computer can?
It is:
How much of myself have I unknowingly built around the old one?