Re: "One solution is to boot a Linux USB stick ..."
"there is a reason why MSFT can place spyware in their OS and adware on the lockscreen"
Inertia and sunk cost. So two reasons, then. The tipping point is different for everybody but -based on their recent behaviour- there is no fucking way windows 10 is getting on any machine in my domains, even in a VM.
As you say, there is a lot of stuff that is only available for windows. It's been the dominant system for lazy bastards for the last 20 years; with a whole planetfull of programmers tweedling away and producing solutions for various problems. And then there's all the custom software written for business and/or to get things done. That's the situation now.
Things change; but one thing that doesn't change is a constant cost/benefit equation on the part of the user. For quite some time now, Microsoft have been releasing products for the shareholders, at the expense of the customers and there's only so long and so hard you can do that. Business is all about maximum milk for minimum moo, so it'll be interesting to see if Microsoft have upped their yield or have set the herd running for the horizon. For me; I wandered out the gate and was an outside cow for windows 8; but the W10 shenanigans has me over the horizon and still accelerating.
And Microsoft hasn't even started invoicing yet. I genuinely don't know what will happen then; but am waiting with interest to see. S'pose I should say that you couldn't pay me enough to have that crap on my system; but yeah you probably could. It wouldn't be on a work computer, though. I don't know what the future will hold; the exact power of inertia; or whether my low opinion of my own species is justified and people will bend over and take it. The only thing that I can absolutely guarantee is that there will be no money from me to Microsoft paying for a W10 lease. Ever.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
