I do agree that the open source ecosystem seems worth more than that. But $1 per Linux install seems like a kind of arbitrary pick that might not meet our intuition, if you want to hit 4B installs.
Like, there are only ~8B people, and most of them don’t use Linux on the desktop, so we must be including other uses of Linux. Routers, IOT. I’m pretty sure my lightbulbs run Linux. Is Linux supplying $1 of value per lightbulb? I’m not sure, I suspect smart bulb manufacturers could have gone with some proprietary stack if Linux didn’t exist, and it might cost less than $1 per lightbulb… actually, I have no idea, but I don’t think $1 is an obvious lower bound.
Okay so lets say $10 for every Android cellphone that puts you at 30 billion. Not sure how you want to estimate server installs but a quick google puts forth 96% of web servers run Linux.
Like, there are only ~8B people, and most of them don’t use Linux on the desktop, so we must be including other uses of Linux. Routers, IOT. I’m pretty sure my lightbulbs run Linux. Is Linux supplying $1 of value per lightbulb? I’m not sure, I suspect smart bulb manufacturers could have gone with some proprietary stack if Linux didn’t exist, and it might cost less than $1 per lightbulb… actually, I have no idea, but I don’t think $1 is an obvious lower bound.