First, the person above you didn't say anything about caring about the underlying ideology; they said that they cared that the project seemed to them to be an art project designed for ideological purposes and unlikely to succeed as a result.

Second, people definitely do choose their linux distributions based on ideology. The Debian project, in particular, has a very well established ideology. They also choose which distributions they spend money on or donate money to (the relevant comparison to purchasing stars as discussed here) based on ideology.

Third, Urbit is a different category of thing from a Linux distribution. Urbit is a network. A network designed and organized based on a particular principle can impose that principle on the way that people on the network act, interact, and relate on the network in ways that a Linux distribution cannot. I am not certain whether this accurately describes Urbit. Statements from the project and its developers have suggested to me that this has been a goal, but they may have retreated from that since.