Comment by powerclue
It's not toxic to not offer infinite support for a platform you don't have familiarity with. Just like if you are vegan it's not toxic to refuse to prepare a meaty hamburger.
Yes, a toxic version of this exists, but simply refusing to do a thing isn't toxic.
> It's not toxic to not offer infinite support for a platform you don't have familiarity with.
OP never said he is not familiar with Windows anymore ...
He clearly said that his condition for helping them is if they install Linux. Those two are totally different statements.
I even find that a rather flimsy excuse that you made up. I do not work with MacOS, does that mean i can not help somebody with MacOS? Google kung-fu and i can figure it out. How about Linux ... OS2 lol ... If you have even a bit of basic knowledge, a OS or program is all about Googling the answer these days (or even AI / LLM answering it for you).
We can have a discussion about people being lazy and pulling the "but X family member will solve the issues with my PC/Laptop/Tablet/Smartphone". I simply taught the family members who really want to learn, how to properly Google for issues. It did not matter to me that they use MacOS, or Windows.
Same with internet security, Windows is no issue for safety as long as the people using it, know what they can open and what they can not open. The moment you teach somebody the proper way, all those "support" calls vanish as their system stays clean of viruses and bots.
The whole "i will not help you unless you install Linux" ... that is toxic behavior. Instead of helping people by actually teaching them the basics, and those basics are operating system agnostic... his solution is a bit of blackmail.