VanillaOS. Perhaps not quite ready for prime time, but in a sea of distros where the only difference is a slightly different default config, VanillaOS is doing something distinct and different.

It's because interest rates went up and the free VC money tap was turned off so all these companies have to actually turn a profit, so they're squeezing us with every lever they control.

Even FSF says that charging money for free software is fine.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html