The short answer is: no. If an exchange claims to operate without fees, it is most likely because they have found another way to profit of you. In the worst case there can be problems trying to withdraw your funds.

As long as Bitcoin does not fail, it will keep its status as the blockchain that has been working for the longest time. Therefore, many people trust Bitcoin more than other blockchains, that have not been around that long, and have not been tested over and over again through time. That's why I think many say "Bitcoin is number 1", even though there are other blockchains with much more potential. Unless Bitcoin fails, the majority of people will keep considering it as the safest and most trustworthy crypto coin.

There are meetup groups in almost every major city. Meeting people with the same interest is a great opportunity to learn from each other.

It looks like there is a general pattern: the smaller your invested amount is, the more patient you should be.

Arbitrage trading has much less risk of loss, because you realize profits in a short time period, and you don't have to speculate on prices rising.
What I mean with arbitrage trading here is the following: let's assume you have BTC and USD available on two exchanges.
Each exchange has a different exchange rate for BTC/USD, let's assume the difference is $100. If you now sell 1 BTC on the exchange, where the price is higher, and buy 1 BTC on the exchange with the lower price, you will still have the same amount of BTC in total, but your total USD balance is $100 more than before. That's 100 USD profit within a short time with almost no risk. (In reality it is more complicated, due to fees, slippage, etc. Keep in mind, this is just a simplified example.)

Please don't rush quitting your full-time job, if you have no savings. I recommend not to put yourself in such a risk, otherwise you might soon find yourself accepting an even worse full-time job again.
Maybe it's possible to transition into a part-time job, and use the newly available time on crypto. Maybe you can find a new job in the crypto space, which has synergies with what you want to do on your own.

Bitcoin establishes a decentralized public ledger, which allows anyone to freely send and receive Bitcoins.
Ethereum additionally establishes a decentralized world computer, which allows anyone to set up and run "programs" (smart contracts), e.g. an ERC20 Token contract (which in turn allows sending and receiving ERC20 tokens).

Bitcoin's functionality is only a subset of Ethereum's. Ether is valued by people, because it is needed to pay for the execution of smart contracts, and useful smart contracts are valuable to people.