> Last time I tried to setup LaTex on my mac I just gave up because it was too much work, this seems to be agreed upon a lot of other users too so I don’t feel alone on this, am I?

It seems like I am not part of those many users. On mac yoi can install the full texlive distribution with the default GUI using home brew easily.

brew install --cask mactex

Or if you just want the basic and without any applications you can install basictex

brew install --cask basictex

Then you may use tlmgr to install tools/packages that you need.

Or you can do it using tex live utility (GUI) which can be installed easily

brew install --cask tex-live-utility