If there was a regolith but based on river or dwl I would definitely do the switch, cause i do like a more dynamic tilling workflow compared to the manual tilling
Could be the case 🤔, I think if there was a more accessible WM with no tinkering in config files needed we might see a bigger adoption to the WM workflow (cause it really is more productive)
Adding to the existing comments, there is also invidious which doesn’t bombard you with adds and if you have a homeserver you can easily host an instance (acts like a frontend to youtube)
I would first approach this problem by first trying to convert as many apps that you have into a Foss alternative ( you could use this site to find the alternatives: alternativeto.net).
Then if I was comfortable enough I would later on try flashing a custom rom like lineageOS (I would recommend doing this with a second phone if you have one, like a older phone to get used to the OS since it is a bit different and if something happens you have the original phone as a backup).
Then I guess the final step would be to isolate your work apps that aren’t Foss like WhatsApp into a separate environment with an app like shelter.
Edit: Also try to not rely on google services as much as possible by using alternatives like protonmail/tutamail for email and other search engines like startpage, duckduckgo and searX (or searXNG, I do prefer more this one) (searX/XNG instances being the best search engines out there)
KVM is indeed a much better hypervisor, but it does require some setup with the terminal.
Since he is a beginner I decided to recommend virtualbox since it just works after installing. But if he doesn’t mind setting up things via terminal then KVM is definitely the way.