I think we see some of that already, given the persistence of XFCE and Mate.
Still, for the vast majority of people trying Linux, the recommendation is "use Ubuntu" which means "use Gnome." And the number of people trying Linux is relatively small.
If Haiku's implementation was complete, and ran on the range of hardware people want to use, and ran the apps people want (a lot of ifs in that statement), I could see "use Haiku" being a viable option for a lot of folks. I remember non-technical and technical people alike being very excited when encountering BeOS back in the day.
To be clear, I think the most likely future is crappier desktops for the masses. Windows is downright baffling to use with the unified start menu / advertising billboard / hide-the-control-panel interface. With every release, macOS makes at least one regression in terms of stability, security, usability, or performance and gives us some new useless feature to "defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSPleaseJustLetMeWorkInPeace -bool true." And Linux == Ubuntu == Gnome, which is the Philip Glass of interfaces.
I realize I'm ranting now. BeOS was a happy place for me. I just like to fantasize that Haiku could be such a place again. :-)
To be clear, I don't want to / don't have time to personally support the non-technical users. I'd just wish there were a better default answer than Gnome.
As a long time Gnome user... Yeah, where did they go wrong?
The upper left "hot corner"? That's a 1990's concept that violates so much.
The weird way everything changes when you hit that corner? I mean really, I want the launcher to be there all the time. And if it is hidden, why should all my windows shrink and rearrange just because I want to launch a different program? And why would the workspace switcher swing in on the right too? It's so jarring and unnecessary. Neat features, poor implementation. And and and....
