Fortunately, Linux Desktop users are no longer forced to bend over and take it from NVIDIA: they can get an AMD GPU instead and enjoy a proper kernel driver.
Can you list what abuses by nvidia you are talking about that made life for users worse?
Not sharing their source code with the Linux kernel project, like AMD does. Instead, NVIDIA keeps it close to their chest, providing users only their binary driver. This sometimes causes failure of graphics after kernel upgrades when the kernel changes too much.
In the past they prevented people from running consumer GPUs on Xen systems.
I don't do any AI work, and I just got an Intel GPU. It just worked. I have not installed anything extra, nor have I had to configure anything. It has worked flawlessly.