Been thinking about this kind of stuff since I switched from Windows to Linux several months ago, and even more so since I switched to Arch Linux from Linux Mint this week.
So.
Open-Source vs Closed-Source.
User-Friendly vs User-Centric.
And any similar topics--that is, all things software and operating system philosophy.
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To start this off, with regards to open-source/closed-source:
I prefer that software which can reasonably be free and open source should be so (that's most of it). However, where this isn't viable, I don't have a problem with that. (That part is mainly things which require physical resources on the developer's part in order to maintain, such as cloud services and online gaming, both of which require servers). Actually, with stuff like Google Search, indirectly-paid software (though I suppose it didn't have to be closed-source, that doesn't seem to have hurt) has been critical to the rapid and free spread of information.

Where open-source software is viable, though, it tends to produce better results from what I've seen (e.g. GNU/Linux vs Windows). I can say that the best results I've seen come from the most open OS I've used, Arch (fastest, easiest to solve problems). You could argue with Arch and the like that open-source software tends to be less general-user-friendly, but then we have Antergos: almost the same features plus graphical installer, and still open-source.

There is a difference between user friendly and learner friendly. Although they are related, and people often conflate the two, they are entirely independent of each other; something can be hard to learn but make it easy to do what you want to do if you know what you're doing (many niche products are like this), and things can be easy to learn but actually be hard to use productively (due to, for example, an inefficient user interface).

I agree that there is a difference, but user-friendly in common usage does mean that it's easy to use in general, not just if you know what you're doing. This is Arch's definition, as they are very careful to make clear that Arch is not user-friendly, despite being easy to use once you start to understand it more (including at least the option for a highly efficient interface, depending on your choice of DE), and definitely learner-friendly.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way#User-centric
"Whereas many GNU/Linux distributions attempt to be more user-friendly, Arch Linux has always been, and shall always remain user-centric."