Some of the key milestones for desktop Linux which I can remember:

* Office and PIM apps moved to web, no longer its a requirement.

* You can game on Linux out of the box, same performance or even better.

* Installation and hardware compatibility - it has improved a lot! Even Nvidia and Broadcom chips run easily with no tweaking of config editors.

* Old hardware still runs at same performance (mostly). If I need to upgrade its because I am doing something more like watching 4K movies, running LLMs locally or running MS teams! Not because my file browser or basic text editor is suddenly slow.

There are two major hurdles I see:

* Enterprise IT still prefers Windows or Mac because of MDM (managed devices).

* Niche tools like photo/video editing, CAD software are still Windows only (with Mac ports for some).