When you install any new distro, most of the time it does not come with the video and audio codecs to play videos online and offline.
The best way in my opinion to use codecs without spending hours installing is:
Install needed apps as flatpak.
The most common apps that need codecs is browsers and video players like vlc and mpv.
Just install them(Make sure you enable flathub repo) as flatpak (installed by default in most distros) and you will not need to spend time installing codecs from untrusted third party repos ever again.
I also never had problems with that. Almost all players come with the needed codecs. If you need more, it’s a matter of looking at the optional dependencies or taking a look at the official wiki to know from which official repo to install the needed codec. But that’s only for uncommon codecs.
The regular user should never have to deal with this with pretty much any distro I know of. Where did you have problems?
Fedora as this issue where you need to have rpm fusion to install “non-free” drivers. Other than that you are right all beginner friendly distros have them installed by default (Ubuntu, mint, and friends)
Opensuse, stock debian, fedora, clear linux.
I suffered through this enough number of times till I learned to install browsers this way.
I use stock Debian.
No problems here.
In the case you use GNOME desktop and has issues with the deprecated AVI format still used in some playes and with GNOME Video app, just install libavcodec-extra or use GNOME-MPV (now named in another name I always forget).
The case for OpenSuse. In reality, they do the right thing given that is an European OS. It is illegal in some European countries to distribute several codecs by default given the copyright holders.
Instead of calling for a negation for their package management you should call for content distributors not using well-deployed and available open formats / codecs as well as the copyright holders of the propietary ones for putting these nonsense as rules.
I am not calling for anything.
I am just posting a tip for linux users.
I hope it will make the people who want to use linux daily, do not think of the codecs as reason to not switch.
I see your perspective, but not the usefulness of your approach.
I prefer telling them how it works and that is a way to make actual documentation accessible. I also adapt my explanations to each person and situation.
It is preferable to have people who know how to use an OS and not being hanging around without knowing what to do because they expect even the most simple things done.
That said, codecs work great with Debian stock, so I am unsure about the issues you mention.