Started learning Linux with Manjaro a few years ago, but there were always stability issues pushing me away from daily driving. I found when I did have time to use my PC, it was largely for gaming, and when any issue presented and needed to be fixed it was a bit of a barrier to entry.
Because of biases I always leaned to Arch for that 'bleeding edge' and rolling updates, so when I gave Linux another shot long term a few months ago I went with EndeavourOS. Everything was rock solid but I found a lot of nitpicks and after a week or so my monitors wouldn't wake from sleep... I of course don't blame the OS as more than likely there was a log somewhere explaining my issue, but I really just want to enjoy playing games after a long day.
So I gave up on my faux dream of living on the edge and instead installed Pop_OS!, and to my pleasant surprise it has been rock solid and performant to boot! My preconceived biases against Debian and it's derivatives drove me to borderline tribalism. Flatpak has remedied worries of outdated packages, and even if I did have an issue (bluetooth headphones defaulting to HSP not AD2P) I found the solution on the archwiki!
The beauty of this ecosystem is that Linux is Linux, we all benefit from improvements so long as they are made open and free, and no matter what flavor you choose, you'll always be part of the family.
Thanks for reading, and thank you to the contributors who work tirelessly to make an open and free desktop a reality :)
We are in the minority, its pushed so much because it works.
There are some people who are outright influenced, but other times even shoving visuals at the user is enough to subliminally influence to a degree, advertising is all psychology.
That's why when I remember this when considering compromising and using something with ads. Its never worth the sacrifice, starting to apply the same philosophy to services who subsidize their cost of operating using data. Sure it costs me more but realistically that's how it should be, there's no free lunch.