said by NOYB:
Still not representative of the masses.
Probably mostly "geeks".
Relatively very small sample size.
After low bar set by Vista geeks are naturally going to be favorable the successor Windows 7.
After Windows 7 the bar is much higher for it's successor Windows 8. So anything less than perceived perfection is going to meet resistance.
If anything "geeks" would be more inclined to like Windows 8, then dislike it by my estimate. The problem with these ratings is not sample size, but sample randomness, which you are pretty much alluding to. Unhappy people generally tend to fill in these surveys more than happy people. If I see a dissatisfaction rate of 20% or less (noted by one or two eggs) on Newegg, I usually ignore that. A dissatisfaction rate of 40% shouldn't be ignored. It is an abysmal score. If you are trying to argue that Windows 8 is a resounding success, then we don't have a lot to discuss. Clearly WIN8 has failed in the marketplace.
I'm not sure how I would rate Windows 8 at Newegg, were I to do so. There are many advances worth commending. I think the UI fails for businesses, but for the home user, you can either learn it or install third party software to get around it. The biggest question I have about Windows 8 concerns the very large gamble that Microsoft has made that touch is the future. I'm not so sure that is a wise gamble when it comes to business or serious home use. There is no doubt that MS sees Metro as the future UI. They have to convince a lot of developers to gamble their future on that. When we moved from DOS to Windows, the process took ten years but I don't remember the resistance I see with Metro. No one disliked Windows 3 for it not for the instability and constant GPFs. It was fun to use as long as it would run. Once there are some serious apps for Metro, we shall see. Right now Metro exists like Windows 2 existed. There was no compelling reason to use Windows 2 as there is no compelling reason to use Metro. The first people I ran into that used Windows did wysiwyg professionally. They published a newspaper. That was a substantial argument for the GUI. What will be Metro's substantial argument? Touch?