Windows as a software package would have never been affordable to individuals or local-level orgs in countries like India and Bangladesh (especially in the 2000’s) that are now powerhouses of IT. … Had the OS been too difficult to pirate, educators and local institutions in these countries would have certainly shifted to Linux and the like.
While i somewhat agree with your overall statement, this part is just wrong. Linux in the late 1990s and 2000s was very different from today, where you just plug in a CD/USB and select your region. Linux back then was very nerdy, you had to choose your hardware first to make sure there was a linux driver and the installation process was very difficult, especially before plug&play where you had to know which IRQs and slots you had to use for network, sound and videocard to avoid conflicts. I remember trying to install Linux from a CD, only to work my war from one error message to the next because it did not like my videocard, soundcard or both.
Also, what would you do with a linux pc at home or at work if it could not run word, excel, duke nukem 3D, TTD, programs you knew from work/school or software you could pirate from your friends?
In the 90s there where a lot more OS available to compete agains windows, who already had existing software (sometimes better and more capable) to compete with windows: MacOS (Popular in print, layout), BeOS, OS2/warp (tried to replace windows), Amiga OS (best for video editing work at the time), Atari, Novell Netware.
It’s not exactly like people where desperate for another OS at this point in the late 90s/early 2000s.
One othe trick was to build houses close to each other with narrow streets between them, so they would be in the shade of buildings most of the time. This way the city can actually be cooler than the open area around it.
Of course this won’t work anymore with large modern glass buildings or wide roads between them.