I think people who view Wine/Proton as a crutch is missing the point. Even disregarding the fact that it's introducing more people to Linux (me included), I think the bigger point to make is that the future of software (or rather, the emerging meta of software) is cross-platform. Think about all the web apps and Electron apps. The solution to the Linux compatibility issue is not to make a Linux version of the software, it's to set up a system such that one version works for every OS. Wine/Proton is just an unusual extension of that software philosophy.