What's the most beginner-friendly Linux distro?

A "friendly" Linux distribution inherently needs to meet some rather difficult criteria, not starting with shinyness or the latest packages. Here are the most obvious ones:
It must be suitable for any normal use, from business to casual users. Technical users should be supported, but not three primary focus.
There must be both paid direct support and community support available.
It must be consistent and straightforward to carry out normal tasks.
It must have a reliable path to updates that are better to avoid problems and be able to receive critical security updates without delay.
It must be able to function without any of the above for extended periods of time without any of the above.

These criteria soundly rule out any distribution not based on RedHat or Debian, and trend towards Debian based heavily since the IBM purchase.

I rule out Mint and Manjaro for reasons that should be obvious if you actually intend the end user to be successful:
Mint is essentially Ubuntu (or Debian if you choose the LMDE release) with Cinnamon as the default desktop, I have used it and still do not understand the point to introducing more points of failure to have a slightly nicer Debian installer.
Manjaro is based on Arch, an otherwise fantastic technical distribution. But Arch is not supported commercially, is a rolling release and it's configuration is simply put of the scope of normal use.

This really only leaves Ubuntu and it's major flavours currently. Despite the drop in fad appeal, it provides everything necessary. I would suggest Debian, but installation is a bit less refined.

Thanks for the insight 🙏❤

Ubuntu: You somehow need to use Linux immediately.
Manjaro: You want to learn and use Linux but you want something that just work.
Arch: You really want to learn Linux hard way.

Edit 1:
More detailed answer.
Ubuntu is ready to use. It requires least knowledge of all distros I mentioned. You can find most answers by searching a bit.

Manjaro is similar to Ubuntu and Arch. It is ready to use. Since it is Arch-compatible, you can find some tutorial better.

Arch is the most difficult among three. However, it's so popular. It even has an official Minecraft launcher installation package. If someone wants to know Linux inside out, Arch is one of the best distro. ArchWiki is filled with information for common problems already. It needs more time to learn anyway.

To me, this is a difficult question, as in my experience, Linux always means some learning curve, and some drop-outs - and eventually some distro-hopping might be inevitable. (And whether you come from Windows or macOS will affect DE choice.)

But if I had to choose - Linux Mint, with that Welcome Screen. I feel it even more friendly than Ubuntu.

OpenSUSE with YaST2 is good too, but there are some multimedia codec issues.

I have a personal love for Solus. The budgie desktop is extremely clean. Plenty of app in their "app store". Everything just works great. Honestly there hasn't been anything yet I have had an issue with. Except zoom and I found easy peasy instructions for installing that through flatpak.Its also booting through secure boot (just have to update the signature each time the kernel updates, which isn't often).

My mom has a slightly modified xubuntu that runs since 18.04. and she never had any problems. When she runs windows she gives up after 10 minutes and calls me...

Thanks for the input 🙏❤

I really prefer Ubuntu. But if you are a beginner in Linux environment, you could try Zorin OS. It's great especially if you're a Windows user. Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution designed especially for the beginners. It has a Windows GUI and many programs similar to those found in Windows.The most interesting thing is, Zorin OS comes with an application that lets users run many Windows programs.

I'll add my 2 cents to the stream of Arch and Ubuntu derivatives recommendations : I personally prefer rolling releases, I use Fedora at work and Manjaro at home. The freshnest is a must for me, and I actually find debugging my system to be somewhat enjoyable from time to time ( don't judge me I know you secretly live it too ).

But for total, non tech-savvy beginners, coming from Windows or Mac, I think the most important features are stability and familiarity. In this case, the DE matters a lot, which is why I would recommend Windowsfx, Elementary OS or anything with deepin on top.

In my opinion it's Zorin OS Core, 15 or 16 it doesn't matter (even tho I'd rather recommend the 16 one if you'd like to have the new stuff that really is interesting) it's a really beginner friendly distro with the best things from both Windows and Mac, and even if the installation and some details are Ubuntu based it really stays original and completely different from every Ubuntu based distros, if you have a bit of knowledge when it comes up to Linux distros you can for Manjaro it has a better out-of-the-box hardware compatibility, oh but don't even consider any arch Linux based because it is made for professionals and specifically people with a lot of knowledge in coding.

You're most likely going to run into issues at some point, so I recommend using a distro with a good community. Ubuntu-based operating systems have been good to me for well over a decade. I will specifically recommend giving Pop!_OS a try (also Ubuntu-based). They've been doing great work.

I would recommend Kubuntu, as it has the KDE environment & has a lot of features and is very user friendly. If you are switching from windows then you would have no problems in adapting to it.

As a Web Developer I have always preferred Debian based distros. Over 10 years of distro-hopping I have tried: Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Crunchbang, Suse Tumbleweed, Arch, Manjaro, Elementary, Mint, Zorin, Kali and ParrotOS for testing their penetration tools, and plain wonderful Debian where I tried every WM and DE.
I've riced KDE, Gnome, i3WM, and Awesome.
I have always wanted to try Fedora and Centos, but never got around to it. Maybe on my older Thinkpad T400.

BUT NOW, I absolutely require super solid stability. No more hopping around and ricing my environment. I am in love with Pop OS pop.system76.com/
It's incredibly stable, built by an amazing team of dedicated professionals and the community is so helpful.

My terminal of choice (after using Termite, Terminator, and Tilix for years) now I use Alacritty + tmux. Nvim is installed for quick file edits but I use VS Code 98% of the time.

Feel free to ask me anything ;)

Manjaro will support your Linux learning from cradle to grave. It's easy out of the box, has the aur for when you're not familiar with building from source, and can let you swap out kernel modules easily. That being said, manjaro will remember and build upon all the little mistakes you make in configurations, and eventually stuff can just start to break.
For this reason I'd like to point out Clear Linux. It won't work as a primary computer for most, but if everything you need happens to be in a flatpak or swupd (or of you don't mind building from source but that's not beginner friendly) it makes for an effortless experience. The stateless design helps prevent the issue of old configs breaking things unnoticed. The containerized apps provides further stability. The automatic updates make life easier and helps Linux feel less like a second tech job. Gnome is user friendly enough, although most windows converts would have an easier time in KDE. Of course the glaring issue of app availability will keep clear os from the limelight, but I was surprised by user friendly it was when I gave it a try. Only technical thing I had to do to my install that I would want a newbie to do is disable the ssh service and socket through systemctl.
Edit: just grab Ubuntu and jump in. Picking distros is not especially important and you'll get the best beginner level advice on Ubuntu. Clear Linux is not going to serve you well if you want to learn about Linux because it's so different from the rest and has a tiny community. It's more of a plug and play distro than one that will help you learn.

Thanks for the insight 🙏❤