the usa gov graph shows a daily stat.

The frequency of a stat doesn’t guarantee long-term assumptions. I could track linux market share every millisecond for a week, but that wouldn’t make it much more of a reliable stat than counting it daily for that week instead. The problem isn’t the frequency of the data, it’s the timeline, and the scale.

Linux has so few users relative to the other players in the market, and the data being collected is for such a relatively short timespan where any meaningful changes to the numbers are happening, that it can’t give you a good picture.

For example, if I start a club, and I gain an average of 10% more members every day for the first week, is it safe to assume nearly all of the people in the world will join my club because I currently have an exponential trend in my member count? Obviously not. I’m probably just pulling in people from my local community, and eventually I’ll have gotten most of the people in my area that are actually interested in joining. I have an exponential trend for now, but it’ll flatline in the next few weeks.

if u have any other websites that show linux stats lmk

I don’t, but the sources cited here are actually the ones I personally have already relied on for a bit now. They’re fairly accurate in their own ways. It’s reliable data, just not necessarily indicative of future trends.

there are also reasonings listed in the dropdown at the top of the article

They’re good reasons, but they still don’t do anything to actually validate the assumptions made in the graph. The reasoning is “Linux will probably grow because of x, y, and z… therefore this exact mathematical function is probably accurate”

They help support the theory that Linux marketshare will grow, which I personally do believe to be true, but they do nothing to actually guarantee any numbers. They could mean a 0.1% gain in marketshare per year, a 1% compounding gain, a temporary dip because of any unforseen world events that isn’t accounted for by that function, etc.

To bring it back to my previous analogy, it would be like if I said “all the people joining seem really invested in [club topic], are telling all their friends about it, and membership growth has been very steady, with more people joining over time through referrals from friends. This means I’ll probably see exponential growth”

…

“This exact mathematical function proves I’ll have most people in the world in my club in 10 years”

Hopefully that all makes sense? Genuinely not trying to be confrontational at all, I just want to make sure you don’t get your hopes up because the graph looks like it’ll be guaranteed and then be disappointed if it’s not 😅