As everyone said, FOSS is the way to go for all of your concerns, and most likely won’t be paying a dime.

A non-FOSS alternative for video edits is Davinci Resolve; there’s a free version that is absolutely amazing. Discovered it when looking for an industry standard platform that runs natively on Linux.

Its pretty much just like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro. The non-free functions have so far not felt necessary because of the multitude of free plugins that could be used for the rare occasion I definitely need something that’s otherwise behind a paywall.

Ebbs and flows of how life dictates how it wants you to consume things has always been there, but you still have choice. For new stuff, you can dig for what’s quality to you. You don’t have to give it to the AI sloptubers.

And yes, getting older objectively makes it more difficult to get into new things, but it’s okay to embrace that. Have your backlog of stuff you KNOW you enjoy.