The problem is not really the end of Windows 10 itself. It was released in 2015 which is more than 10 years ago. Even Apple and Linux do not support versions of their OS fur such a long time.

The real problem are the hardware requirements of Windows 11 which do not allow users to install it on older PCs, but the article mentions that only in one short sentence.

In my opinion, end consumers should have the right to buy each PC/notebook with at least two Operation System options and the vendor must provide open source drivers for the hardware. The reason why so few people use Linux is, that Windows is preinstalled on most computers.

Governments and companies should switch to Linux to be independent from Microsoft. It’s simple risk reduction.

Same here. Guacamole is totally fine. But besides that, I can not understand how anyone likes to eat Avocados.

The most famous one is probably PayPal. But I assume for people who are privacy focused, that would be not the first choice.

There is Curve Pay, but I know nothing about it besides the fact that it exists.

Samsung Pay exists, but it only works on Samsung devices and therefore is not really an alternative in this case.

And then there are some regional options. Here in Germany are same banks that offer their own payment apps, most famously the Sparkassen. I heard there are also some Indian and east Asian payment apps, but I don’t know much about them.

Contactless payments does not need to be Google Pay. There are alternatives.