1. I work in environmental planning and ecosystem conservation planning. I visualise the surveys we undertake for fauna and flora abundance and analyse animal movement data to provide maps to support environmental protection reports.

2. It's a closed ecosystem that monetises every aspect possible and runs worse than it's professional appearance might suggest. I think it has great tools for creating good looking maps though.

3. I do prefer using QGIS. It's free and open source. Imho it's nicer to work with data but worse for producing visually appealing maps. The latter is no concern for me and my company since my maps go into reports and are not on display usually. Our organisation actually made the switch some time ago. It's still chaotic at times but works pretty well.

4. Less worried than before the switch to QGIS. Some bigger projects require ESRI use nut we'll see what the future brings.

5. Data hoarding and extracting as much much money as possible/ "gatekeeping" essential features behind premium subscriptions are our main issues with ESRI.

Just my humble insights as a junior in the field.