It seems like you are assigning your own beliefs and values on things and then claiming that people who don’t share them are at a deficit. AKA a dumbass.

He probably had router access.

Yes speed decreases are typical. Pick what’s more important to you the speed or using the vpn.

I have used Linux for around 10 years. My daily driver has changed a couple times but I always go back to Mint. I think its better than Ubuntu personally. Its what I always recommend and I’ve been a sys admin for 5 years and dealt with production environments across all the core distros.

All that said it really depends on what programs you are using. Some have alternatives sure but sometimes that’s not enough. Sometimes you will have a program that just pins you to Windows until you don’t need it anymore.

You should list out what things you use that you need. Take some recommendations on their alternatives or how to set them up in Linux and see if it sounds like it’d work for you.