"irrelevant to [your] day to day life"? Given the market share of Apache on GNU/Linux, I highly doubt it. I think the FSF has great (though indirect) influence even on you.
I think you are right about people being repelled by the lifestyle Stallman advocates. It's a pity.
Neither the Apache project nor Linux came to be because of the GPL. Had there been no GPL, they'd simply have used a different open license. But that's besides the point: what I'm saying is, I'm not particularly invested in the "four freedoms" perspective on software freedom.
Besides the point: Don't forget the "GNU" in GNU/Linux. It came first. It is bigger. It made Linux (the kernel) possible, by doing the rest of the work. So, if you use Linux, remember that it comes with GNU.
You're obviously right about Apache (but then, why did you bring it up?).
But I disagree strongly about the "GNU/Linux" thing. Linux would have happened either way. I installed 386bsd off approximately seventeen thousand floppy disks when I was young, and I don't recall that being a GPL'd userland.
Almost all the work during the Unix Wars was wasted, entombed in proprietary forks. It's no coincidence that they were all quickly surpassed by the first kernel whose license makes it mostly immune to that problem. Without the GPL, Linux would have happened just as slowly as the BSDs, and getting where we are would have taken many years (decades?) longer--and what's most appalling, most users would not be allowed to understand or improve their tools.
I think you are right about people being repelled by the lifestyle Stallman advocates. It's a pity.