I've found that it's pretty good at this point for the inlaw/grandma crowd that mostly just checks email and Facebook. As long as you (someone that isn't them) installs and configures it for them. Pop is my current recommendation and it's working well for a few people I've setup. My grandmother ran Ubuntu for close to the last decade of her life, I only had to update now and then, and I setup WINE for the two games she wanted installed.
This isn't too much different from how a lot of people use Windows and Mac, many wil have their kids figure out how to setup an application for them. It depends, of course. A lot of professional apps just don't have suitable equivalents for Linux and WINE doesn't do it for them.
I'll put it this way, my non technical friend is tried of Windows.
She doesn't play video games or need much space. An M2 MacBook Air is 800$. If anything goes wrong, just take it to the Apple store. Even out of warranty if it's something simple like you broke a setting, they'll fix it for you.
It'll be much easier to just buy a Mac. I personally don't want to buy a new Mac because I want to have a 4 TB SSD and to get that in a MacBook you have to spend between 3k and 4k. Vs being able to upgrade a cheaper Windows laptop for 200$.
I personally dual boot Linux Mint and Windows. Linux is much better for getting things done.
This isn't too much different from how a lot of people use Windows and Mac, many wil have their kids figure out how to setup an application for them. It depends, of course. A lot of professional apps just don't have suitable equivalents for Linux and WINE doesn't do it for them.