My parents are like this: they usually just ignore it until it becomes a crisis.

And then they pay more for whatever it was they were screwed by.

Luckily, every now and then they sway into FOSS after they’re screwed again. I just got them to switch to Libre Office after Microsoft started refusing to let them save excel files until they subscribed to office 365. I think next will be a NAS to replace the subscription cost to iCloud…

As far as nefarious actors go: I would say the risk is higher for technology that is newer/replacing paid subscription services. If you’re downloading a cracked piece of software especially (I would t even recommend that, you might as well support an open sourced alternative). But the older projects that are replacements for legacy softwares are far better tested and coopted by large communities. Simple software that’s typically cloud-hosted is a prime candidate for a FOSS self-hosted alternative. I would even go so far to say that taking the time to learn basic self hosting is a prescient skill to have (but I’ll get off my soap box now).