I've heard this expression many times before, still doesn't make any sense to me. I vastly prefer my setup based around FreeBSD I've used for the last 20+ years, than the corporate hell that is Windows.

Not much has changed over the years - I still use rc.conf and pf.conf to configure my system. Things are still where I expect them to be.

XFCE is still the same, thunderbird hasn't changed much. Vim is exactly how it was. And the initial learning curve wasn't even that steep.

Meanwhile, Windows is just getting worse and worse and worse for each year. So in that case, I am paying both with my time wasted and with money(though someone elses).