The best advice I have for new nerds: Refuse to pay rent.

Don't subscribe. Don't lease. Don't use their cloud. Don't slip down the freemium slope. Don't create accounts on their services.

Buy it once. Run it local. Avoid commercial software.

It'll be a huge pain and you'll be an outsider but it'll be endless, interesting, and hard fun that'll pay you back with a curious mind and an understanding of the fabric of our intellectual infrastructure that will make you light-years more capable, useful, and healthy than the "AI" zombies.