Why buy a PC?
Although undoubtedly Windows 8 has been a failure in the marketplace (plummeting PC sales since its release shows this, as clearly explained above by others) the market place has changed for good, just at around the same time that Microsoft F'ed up with W8. I'm the typical poster here - IT nerd and the one everyone I know goes to to have PCs fixed and advice about new computers. I always analyse carefully what people actually want - not what they THINK they want - and I can honestly say I've not recommended they buy a PC for a couple of years now. In most cases an old PC could be upgraded cheaply to do what they needed, and then it used to be that a notebook could be bought for portable use. However, this has now changed and, partly because of the nightmare of Windows 7 Starter edition, but mostly because Tablets are just SO good, everyone I have advised recently has bought a Tablet instead. Very few home users need a desktop PC for anything other than office stuff and photos. Clearly the real geek needs more than that, but I'm talking 'normal' users here.
Personally I needed more than a tablet to use on the go recently and rather than buy a laptop, I got an old one that work was throwing out, put Linux Mint on it and use that when my tablet or PC aren't the best options. My PC too is an old throwout, upgraded by myself. It runs linux as the main OS but I can dual boot to XP if I need iTunes (hate it!) or Photoshop, which I can't get to run under Wine, sadly. I don't give a rat's arse about XP not being supported soon as a rarely boot up into it, and have very little chance of it getting infected by anything.
So, will I ever pay the Microsoft Tax again? No! As for friends and family, I think very rarey either. It isn't all Windows 8's fault by a long chalk, but coming out with that rubbish at this particular moment in time has been a real disaster for Microsoft and its hardware partners.