Low skill users will use what comes installed on their machine, so installation quirks like that are not relevant for them. They don’t install Windows either.

What exactly is the utility of the above quote of yours then?

To show that the correlation is spurious at best.

Has it become even more successful after he’s mellowed out?

Yes, it has. Usage of Linux has been growing over the years.

My point is exactly that. It’s not obvious, and as such you can’t attribute the success of Linux to his behaviour. Like the OP said, there’s no logic in looking at something successful and picking a singular thing to be responsible.

How is that obvious? Especially because it’s become even more successful after he’s mellowed out?

The analogy is that the end result doesn’t justify the behaviour from the person in power. It’s apt.

Of course it is. A square is also a rectangle but it’s still an important distinction.

But did it work because of the style or in spite of it? No reason to believe it wouldn’t be even more successful if he had been less abrasive like he is now.

It’s not a comparison, it’s an analogy. Important distinction.

You might be able to create profiles anonymously, but you can’t use those services anonymously. They only work if you have other people added as friends or whatever, unlike content aggregators like lemmy or reddit, where you can be as anonymous as you want and still interact with all features of the site.

I think that narrows it down enough. If you can use all features of the platform without personally knowing anyone on it, it’s not social media.

Then email is also social media, Google docs is social media, phpBB is social media, Amazon review sections are social media, even Pornhub comment sections are social media, and so on…

If Lemmy fits the criteria, then so does 95% of the internet. Not a very useful definition, in that case.

How would you do it?