I have been Reddit user for years, because I found the technical communities there that I liked. Since a couple of weeks I am using Lemmy and didn’t look back. Yes we need more people in the communities, but I already like the content I am able to find here. Reddit is more massive, but there is a lot more thrash there as well.
I have 2 Debian GNU/Linux laptops for me and my family plus our Homeserver. Everything we need for school and private usage is working fine. So for my Linux @ Desktop is here now. Compared to 10 yrs ago when I was the only one, the desktop has come a long way. So I do not get this discussion anymore. If you are talking of GNU/Linux Desktop in major companies as the OS for the masses than I agree. But this is then not a technical but commercial problem.
Which ROM are you using? The only one where microG worked for me was LineageOs with microG, so where microG was baked in. I tried numerus times to get the microg installed with a rooted LOS and finally gave up. I am using my phone since 2 yrs now without Google or microG, so plain LineageOS. All the apps I need work just fine but I use only F-Droid apps with Signal taken directly from theit website.