And Linux isn’t minimal effort. It’s an operating system that demands more of you than does the commercial offerings from Microsoft and Apple. Thus, it serves as a dojo for understanding computers better. With a sensei who keeps demanding you figure problems out on your own in order to learn and level up.

Counterpoint: most people don’t use Linux because the people that evangelize Linux talk about it like this.

I don’t want to “level up,” I want to accomplish my tasks. I’m trying to get shit done, not train for a fucking tournament.

In the short-term (0-6mo, maybe less): probably nothing really changes. It’s not super likely that anyone would be holding on to a massive flaw, waiting for EOL. Nothing stops Microsoft from patching after EOL for something major, they’ve done it before.

Medium-term (maybe up to a year or two): you’re looking at real potential to get infected with --who-knows-what–. Hard to say how long it would take or how widespread it would be.

Longer term: massive, massive security hole. Microsoft has probably even patched a major thing or two by now (despite EOL), but there will always be more