Sometimes you gotta be realistic that the majority of the population wouldn't have found Linux as friendly as many here are, even today, while Windows or is/was kinda the obvious mainstream choice for running any software... The balance seems to tip slowly, but honestly it took decades.
Even today you're still all debating which distro that didn't exist 10 years ago is the best, and which office suite can match Microsoft's... How am I going to convince my non-nerd friends to use Linux over Windows in that context.
About gaming, it's a matter of being able to run AAA games without issues, like, no bugs and anti-cheat problems. It's only since SteamOS that it is getting enough programmers and mainstream attention.
This is the way, but once again it required the power of a dominant company to move the lines.
Who said it was better before. The problem is that every nation is pushing their agenda and we need truly independent games companies. Having video games owned by public funds is just bad. Like every medias owned for political reasons.
I'm not from UK or America. My country got stereotyped enough in games and medias don't worry.