Have you tried meet.jit.si? The quality is pretty bad but it's way easier to use than zoom which kind of has a reputation for it. I got my dad set up with jitsi in hardly a minute whereas zoom took around 10 minutes
Yes. As you point out, the quality is abysmal.
We use it for 6-10 people one night each week, quality is good for those of us with good webcams and wifi bandwidth. I've found it as good as Teams.
Discord is somehow the best video conferencing tool I've ever used.