The shift stands out because the change was not gradual but abrupt. Linux's rise came largely at Windows' expense, while macOS saw only limited movement over the...
This reminds me of a similar situation about a year where Win7 market share suddenly rose from 2% to 9%. If you dug into the data it showed that it was mostly isolated to Singapore and the data also showed a similar increase in incredibly uncommon display resolutions and such. You could also do some math and would come to the conclusion that the numbers only made sense if the total number of devices in Singapore increased tenfold, with everyone running Win7 for some reason.
Long story short, you could explain this in detail to some people and some still wouldn’t accept that this wasn’t the return of Win7.
PS: Here’s a telling chart with data that wasn’t fixed from that time:
This reminds me of a similar situation about a year where Win7 market share suddenly rose from 2% to 9%. If you dug into the data it showed that it was mostly isolated to Singapore and the data also showed a similar increase in incredibly uncommon display resolutions and such. You could also do some math and would come to the conclusion that the numbers only made sense if the total number of devices in Singapore increased tenfold, with everyone running Win7 for some reason.
Long story short, you could explain this in detail to some people and some still wouldn’t accept that this wasn’t the return of Win7.
PS: Here’s a telling chart with data that wasn’t fixed from that time:
https://gs.statcounter.com/screen-resolution-stats/desktop/singapore/#monthly-202409-202509
PPS: And the same thing can be observed for this current fluke:
https://gs.statcounter.com/screen-resolution-stats/desktop/north-america
Apparently it’s the year of the 720p Linux desktop.