I think there is some merit to it, at least as far as dubious features with auto opt-in go. It's not so much that the distro will save you from a hostile firefo

I think there is some merit to it, at least as far as dubious features with auto opt-in go. It's not so much that the distro will save you from a hostile firefox or chromium. Rather, it'll give you the modicum of dignity by preventing you from being enrolled in these. In the best case, it prevents upstream from further rolling out such features due to the pushback. In the worst case, you get a small heads up about what's coming down the pipe inevitably anyway and you can plan accordingly.