I read the post like you at first, but I don’t think he works on the fediverse. I think it was just a poor/unclear sequence of clauses in his post.

I use base. Super straightforward and works perfectly with the rest of my set up. I also use Mullvad VPN (when I need one) and Leta (when I just need a simple search and not for images). Rarely use the browser.

Laws and policies are different. The Trump administration takes much more extremist views towards laws on the books making their internal policies much worse (in most cases).