No I follow the 3-2-1 rule which states you have should have 3 copies in 2 locations where 1 of them is remote.

In my case, the remote part is two external SSDs where I leave one with my parents and the other one plugged into my NAS which does automatic daily backups. When my parents come I swap them around.

too important to self-host

For me it’s the other way round. My photos are too important to trust any corporation - no matter how trustworthy they say they are.

As a Linux user myself, I understand what you are saying. Every distribution has its advantages and disadvantages, and you can’t expect regular people to know which one is best for them. Saying it’s not confusing to the average consumer is disingenuous.

Having said that, if you want to make the switch, go for Linux Mint and be happy. In my opinion, it’s the easiest Linux distribution by far, and everything just works.

Compared to what?

I would never use an ISPs router for my home network. It just causes so many issues that you can easily avoid by either using your own router directly or if that is not possible putting the device into “bridge” mode and using your own router behind it.

What are some of the issues?

The devices the ISPs send out are usually the cheapest hardware imaginable and therefore introduce substantial unnecessary latency.

Where I live some ISPs also used to use tools that genereted wifi passwords based on the devices MAC address. While this is apparently fixed now, a lot of non tech savvy users still use these old devices that are basically open to anyone now.

To save even more money, they sometimes deliberately send out faulty devices (as in devices that drop connection frequently, restart for no reason, etc) which is just horrible.

I know these issues because I worked in that field and there are a lot more unfortunately…

As others have said both options are inferior to Signal because you can’t verify the privacy claims Meta makes.

However I’d argue that WhatsApp Web is slightly better, because it being a web app means Meta can collect less data about you compared to a phone app.