> had to read the blog on lynx due to light grey text on white.

No need to go that far, this site supports reader mode.

> Does this change require GNOME and/or Wayland?

PipeWire is not bound to Wayland or a specific desktop environment, it runs (mostly) fine under GNOME, KDE Plasma as well as sway. The desktop interfacing is done via flatpaks xdg-desktop-portal, as long as your desktop implements that you should be fine.