This was the discussion at a company I worked for in the 1990s. Our products were on OS/2. Our offices were a mix of unix, Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and Mac. To get a document that from one person to the next in a usable format was difficult. The engineers loved OS/2. Greatest OS ever for the time but they couldn’t use it for actual work unless they were in emulation mode. The lack of usable business applications made it wither and die. Developers for Linux and other OSs will have to figure out how to overcome that. You are right about why bother with such a small base.
I work exclusively on a Linux desktop. No emulation involved for any task.
I can communicate with all of my co-workers, management, users, and customers without any issues whatsoever. This includes documents, spreadsheets, video meetings, e-mail, shared storage space, etc.
I am much more productive than those employees who insist on using a Windows desktop to do the same job I do.