this is sad

> What you said is true for macOS, too. And it's more expensive in purely monetary terms, too. Still it's vastly more popular than Linux.

I would not say so. If you are on a Mac, then, most of the time you end up buying hardware "for the Mac". Does it cost more than equivalent hardware for PCs? Yes, it does. But then it just works and typically it pleases your eye too.
I never see hardware that is designed to play nicely with Linux and immediately recognizable as such. Even when some piece of hardware carries the penguin logo, most of the time it is a pain. Typically, it comes with some binary only kernel module that works with a single version of the kernel which is never the one you are on and that certainly will not be the one you'll be on in one year. Even things that could be easily done in user space in a future proof way, typically are not or are entangled with GUIs that do not play nice (or coherently) with the rest of your system.

> Not really. Chromebooks are even worse there than Windows - and yet they occupy 7 out of 20 most popular slots on amazon.

Yes, because at least the hardware that is /inside/ the chromebook just works and will keep working when ChromeOS gets updates. With linux it is not like that. Even if I buy a PC with linux preinstalled, I can not be sure of what is going to happen and what is going to break and how much time it will require to repair when I upgrade the OS. Even on a 2008 workstation that I have and that carries a major brand suspend and resume is broken every odd OS upgrade. On laptops you need to be prepared to always have glitches with the graphics card.

For the rest, I see your point, even if I do not 100% agree with it. I think that there are portions of software for which the distro provided packaging will always be better (where integration and coupling between various parts can make a difference) and some items where easing the ISV packaging in a cross-distro fashion can be important (commercial software, large packages that are sufficiently autonomous, things that carry their own package manager like texlive, etc.).

Incidentally, if Android succeeds on the desktop, I fear it to be a bit like Windows 3.1 was in the days of its maximum glory: sort of unstable (all my phones already are, because apps can bring the OS to its knees easily since they are never designed with system constraints in mind), cheap and preinstalled, used by everyone because everyone uses it (and you cannot do differently), not really loved by anyone.