Single vision lenses are always going to be better at that one thing than anything else which tries to cater for all (or multiple) distances, at the expense of everything else.

I also agree with educating yourself to protect yourself. However, there will be many holes in your research which a good optometrist should be able to fill in. Together you can make the best choice.

One area I never see discussed, especially from the "I can find my own prescription" crowd, is binocular vision. How your eyes work together at certain distances and with certain tasks will determine not only which prescription you need but also how the spectacles are set. I'm not only talking about setting the PD and lens height (which may need to be different for your right lens compared to your left, at different at all distances). There are many more considerations such as vertex distance, pantoscopic tilt, frame choice, lens material, wrap angle etc.

Sometimes the optical centration is intentionally different from the PD to induce prism to decrease eye strain. This is not uncommon with complex prescriptions and in the older population.

And sometimes there are other solutions such as vision training. Not the woo woo Bates method, but real vision training used to fix real problems.

Good optometrists provide a lot of value. There just way too much information and most patients will be happy to just let them do what is needed.

And sometimes you just need to get off the PC for a bit.