They've been getting far more pragmatic in recent years. e.g non-free wifi drivers are now bundled on the installation images.

Before this it was necessary to do a silly dance, manually downloading drivers and either modifying the installation media or using multiple usb sticks. They understood that this was more than a mere inconvenience, some users are just going to be blocked and move on to a Debian derivative.

You can even use OpenZFS on Debian now, although it forces you to compile it for license compatibility, but it's all automated through apt to ensure it affects the user minimally.

> silly dance, manually downloading drivers and either modifying the installation media or using multiple usb sticks

Or just use USB tethering with your smartphone as the initial network connection