I use mainly fish and occasionally nushell.

If it’s your first distro, then it might be an overkill.

I’d first start out with a readymade distro, because maybe it already fits your needs and wants. If you get to a point where you spend a lot of time on rebuilding your setup or distro-hopping, then Arch can be considered.

(Not because you are lazy. I’m lazy, too, but maintenance isn’t much work, unless you’re running updates too infrequently. You should check the news before updating. Many users don’t and even then when you “break” something, it’s not too difficult to identity the problem and fix it with the great help of ArchWiki, the community and chroot.)

#1 finds ways to not give you a solution despite having one. #2 finds ways to give you a solution despite not having any.

Roadwarden

Yes, that is “fucked” up. The same way it is fucked up that not all VHS you once bought and own have been preserved without loss and none of them will forever. The same way it is fucked up that a software product you once bought and own won’t be updated to be usable with your requirements forever.

The mortality of a product does suck, but a) this isn’t exclusive to the greed of subscription services and b) you don’t need to use a product til the end of time to make it worth it. E.g. I don’t use Netflix anymore, but everything I was able to consume during my subscription was ridiculously worth it to me.

Why do I need to own them?

I don’t know the current state of Debian installation. But not too long ago, installing Arch Linux felt much easier lmao

It can be worth the effort, if the tool fit your needs and wants in the first place.

If we reduce the question to application software, it’s probably Alacritty.

In my opinion taking your time to find the Linux distribution you like the most, is not only a great learning experience, but also allows you to learn more about your own preferences.