Re: a fight to get into a space that no one wants?
yup, that's on the money. And there's another important point in Linux's (and sadly, particularly Ubuntu's) favor for power users-- it is the easiest platform for developing android code. All the google tool-chains are setup around Ubuntu, and with (presumably) lots of money from app development and mobile services, why wouldn't you want your power users / content developers to run systems that match and play nicely with whatever it is you are offering customers via "cloud" and "mobile" services?
But my grandma running Linux? Not happening, and unity-whizz-bang-wtf is certainly not going to convince me to walk her through it when it takes me 20 minutes just to figure out how to get a terminal or where my windows are.