Personally I'm excited to see Flatpak become more widespread and usable, fixing some "rough around the edges" aspects of it. I've been using it quite a bit this past few months and I think it presents a really coherent, simple vision for how to do package distribution that solves a lot of pain points. The sandboxing functionality is critical and easy to use, I don't need every app to have access to everything in my home directory.
OBS is an absolute powerhouse, an amazing example of what OSS can do
It can be you. It doesn't have to be Big Corps or Government. It can be federated instances, it can be self-ownership of data, it can be E2E encrypted.
Pro tip: The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a non-profit which has been defending your right to privacy for many years. If you shop on Amazon, you can give a portion of the purchase price to EFF. You pay the same amount and daddy bezos gets a few less dollars. Use the affiliate link, not the smile link as smile has been sunsetted: https://www.eff.org/node/58741
Important notice: Fossil fuel companies have shifted the narrive they push from "climate change isn't real" to "climate change is real but there's nothing we can do about it". We can absolutely do something about it: fight it like the existential threat that it is. Whatever power you can levy in life whether at home, at work, at the voting booth, with your investments, or in the streets: use it.
Every time I try another DE I always come back to XFCE. Lightweight, stays out of the way, gets the job done. NEVER crashes. Ever.
Every linux enthusiast should try Qubes at least once. The architecture is totally different, vastly more secure in many ways than most Linux distros. It's definitely not for everybody, but if privacy and security rank high on your priority list it's worth a look. It never ends up in Linux top ten lists for some reason, but it's an incredible OS.