Why DIY? Why not use an OS that just works???

You might not have asked but I do actually get this question a lot when I nerd out about Linux stuff, and I'm mostly writing this as something to reference when I am asked. I've got a few different reasons and enough to say for each one to where a string of Discord messages wouldn't suffice.

What do you mean by "just works"?
I mean anything that doesn't demand tinkering from its users. This means Windows and MacOS, as well as any Linux distro or other Unix OS that is meant to be fully usable as a base install. So Ubuntu, Mint, and any other distro that's mostly known for the desktop experience counts. I also extend this to stuff that is slightly more technical to use and has an identity based on lower-level system components, but can still be installed with a desktop and generally doesn't need/want you to fuck around too much. I think stuff like Debian and Fedora, as well as some Arch forks like Endeavor and Cachy still counts as "just working" to some degree. And to clarify, I don't mean this as an insult. I respect that not everyone wants to spend hours skimming through wiki articles and 10 year old Stack Overflow posts to figure shit out, and I commend distros that manage to provide an experience that, well, "just works". But my preferences don't align with that, and for the sake of comparison I'm going to label stuff as either "just works" or "DIY". (there's also different levels of DIY, like arch compared to gentoo compared to lfs, but i'm still putting them under one label for now)

Anyways, here's my reasoning:

CONTROL
I like having granular control over my system, and I just don't get that with the "just works" OSes. Yes, I CAN tailor any Linux distro or other Unix OS to suit my preferences, but removing shit I don't want causes breakages, is more annoying, and less foolproof than building from the ground up. For example, I know a few different people who use what I like to call a "Mint of Theseus", an install of Linux Mint that has had almost every defining component of it replaced with different stuff. It usually barely works, sucks to use and modify, and is just unclean. I consider them to be part of the "DIY" crowd but too reluctant to move to something nicer for them at the cost of some hand-holding (rant over).

Anyways, I'm weird and picky and like being able to decide everything for myself. Most people aren't going to notice a difference when using a different init system or userspace, but I will, so I'm going to do something about it. I am petty enough to lose my shit and consider my system "barely usable" if there's one specific detail I don't like. In fact, some professionals like to call this phenomenon "autism". Crazy how that works.

UNDERSTANDING
This is my biggest reason for going DIY. If I haven't done shit myself then I can't understand it. With control comes understanding, and vice versa. If you're a control freak then you must also be a "knowledge freak", you can't be one or the other. If I don't understand my system then I don't feel like I'm really using it.

Now let's go back in time to when I first started using Linux. I had some minor computer knowledge, but not a ton. I've narrowed my distro selection down to two choices, and two timelines diverge here. In one timeline, I decide to go with Mint. I boot into the install environment, open the guided installer, and click through everything. It doesn't really say much, I'm not presented with any choices. Super quick and easy, seems way nicer that the Linux I was warned about. I boot into my fresh Mint install, and I'm greeted with a desktop that's pretty similar to Windows with some minor differences, mostly positive changes though. I want Steam, so I go into the app store the installer told me about and install steam. I open it up and it well... just works. 3 months later, I've gotten by with no problems. There were no hurdles to jump over, no dirt to get on my hands, and no mysteries to solve. Something felt off though. It wasn't actually a perfect experience, there were things I got annoyed about, and my system still didn't exactly feel like it was MINE.

Now let's hop over to the other timeline. In this one, I didn't take the easy route. I took the plunge and chose Arch as my first distro. I boot into the ISO and I'm greeted with a terminal I don't know any commands for. A blank canvas without a brush I could proficiently use. I pushed forward though, following the install guide on the Arch wiki, and making sure to figure out what each command meant. After around an hour of fucking around I had a system I could boot into. I needed a graphical environment but didn't know how to install one. But I didn't throw in the towel and conclude that my install was broken and Arch was just nerd shit that wasn't worth my time. I did some research into different desktop environments, and (kind of blindly) went with KDE Plasma. I learned how Arch's package manager worked so I could install it. At this point it was mostly as complete as the other timeline's Mint install is right away. I wanted Steam so I went into my terminal and typed "sudo pacman -S steam", but it didn't install like I was expecting. Eh, whatever, it looks like Plasma has an app store of sorts, I can just get it from there. So I do, but it doesn't work. Steam seems way slower than usual, and isn't even seeing my second drive. I did some more research and found out that I had installed the Flatpak version of Steam, which is absolutely fucking gimped and is recommended against by almost everyone. I then see that Steam is actually in the Arch repos, but it's in the multilib repo, and I don't have that enabled. So I figure out how to enable it, and it turns out it's just commented out in a config file. Then I install the regular version of Steam and it works just fine. I'd spent the entire night just getting a working system, but the time was worth it. I had gained a sufficient amount of knowledge to start making my own choices. By 3 months later, I've decided that KDE Plasma actually fucking sucks and is too complicated to understand, so I decide to try something more minimal and use i3wm, where I had full knowledge of everything it was capable of. Every option in every config was looked at and adjusted to my liking.

You get the point. I probably went on too much there but I needed to get a point across. If you know me then you know which timeline we're in right now, and if not then you can probably guess based on my enthusiasm in each one. In the Mint timeline, I'm not understanding stuff. I'm not operating my system, I'm merely using it. I wasn't happy because deep down, I'm not just an end-user who's fine with just having a functional system that I don't know the inner-workings of. If you are then that's fine, good for you. But it's just not me.

MINIMALISM
I've always kind of operated on the philosophy that I shouldn't have anything that I don't need or want. This is another big reason on why I'm so picky about what's on my system. Forgive me for using the unholy, blashpemous word I'm going to say in every other sentence in this section: BLOAT. Bloat means anything I don't need/want. 99% of stuff on the average system is bloat. It just sits there and exists, not doing anything other than being there when it really doesn't need to be. It doesn't matter for most people, but it does to me. I get bothered when stuff is present when it doesn't need to be (and yes i feel this way about myself existing).

So what is a weirdo like me supposed to do about bloat? Well, uh, read the first 1383 words on this page and figure it out. I get a minimal base that has barely anything that I need, and add what I do need and ONLY what I do need. There can't be a lot of bloat if I CONTROL and UNDERSTAND my system.

PERFORMANCE
To a lesser extent, I also care about tiny little differences in performance. I don't see any reason why I should have to wait for stuff to happen on my computer, even if the wait is usually less than a second if I don't optimize. That's still a noticable delay, and eats away at my patience. 1/10th of a second is better but still kind of noticable, 1/100th of a second is ideal and generally isn't considered an interruption, and 1/1000th of a second is perfect and still not out of reach for a lot of programs. I won't talk about how much that wasted time adds up to because the time I spend optimizing is pretty much always longer, but I'd still rather have my system perform well when I'm actually trying to use it. Yeah, 5 seconds off my boot won't even add up to an hour of time saved in total until I boot my system 720 times, but it's still awesome to not have to wait a long time when I'm actually in the moment. Especially since I had what the next section is about, the time spent optimizing doesn't feel wasted.

FUN
If all of my reasoning here seems like complete bullshit to you, this is the only thing I have left to say: I have fun messing around with my OS. It's a hobby for me, and if I have a good time doing it, then why shouldn't I? If you care so much about how other people use their time that you genuinely think enjoyed time is wasted time, then maybe you need to take some time to reflect and see how shitty that is. And if you have to pull out the "facts and logic" card, then maybe also take a second to unearth the fact that the world and your life are MEANINGLESS, and that it's logical to use your meaningless time to stimulate your meaningless brain in a way you find fun.

Conclusion
In the end, people will still debate me when I say why I like doing things the hard way. They don't understand, and they don't have to. But not outright being an asshole about it really isn't that hard to do, and doesn't make you look any stupider to anyone who's using their brain. And I also don't have to even acknowledge any of the internet losers who think they have the authority to dictate my preferences, but I still like to give my reasoning, and I think I've said enough here to help anyone who isn't deliberately trying to be ignorant understand me.