Hey, if you don’t think distributions are doing anything, you can always use Linux From Scratch.
Seriously though, most of the work done by good distros is specifically so you don’t notice things. They make a bajillion independent open source projects work together nicely. That’s something I’m glad I don’t have to do myself.
Ecosia already has more users than Brave Search according to the few sources I could find that even tried to estimate market share for search engines that niche. They’re all less than a percent either way though, and nobody’s gunning to beat the 13th most popular search engine, especially when number 1 has 80-90% of the market according to most estimates.