I think that this endless philosophical debate is more often than not just a single layered yes or no, all or nothing dilemma. What tends to be overlooked though is the people behind these views, and to me, those are far more interesting than the problem itself, given the nature of it being an antinomy.
The main difference I see is how we see or wish to see our own agency. The best concept to describe this I think is J.B.Rotter's Locus of control, which describes the degree of how we perceive our agency, whether it's an external LoC, where we perceive our lives as we experience them as more dependent on external forces and circumstances, or an internal LoC, where we perceive our lives as more dependent on us and how we look at things and react.
My hypothesis is that avid proponents of free will have a strongly internal locus of control while those proposing determinism have a strongly external locus of control, as this is not only a dilemma on how the world works but also how we, as its participants, are affected by it.
From my point of view, if I push forward free will, I am at the same time telling the world something about myself:
>What I do and how I act is something I am responsible for and should be held as so, and I expect that of everyone else, because we all have agency for what we do. (mind you this is not all encompassing but just a baseline, as there are valid reasons to not be in full agency due to unfortunate circumstances such as psychotic illness or just general lack of knowing better etc., all of which should be taken into consideration by a socially healthy person.)
While on the other hand, if I push forward determinism, I am at the same time saying:
>What I do, and what everyone else does, is the result of external circumstances to the highest degree and so responsibility for acts that come out of it should not be placed on those who performed them, as their actions are not theirs to begin with. (Undoubtedly I expect people to have a problem with this description which I welcome, though before you react, remember: "Determinism is the metaphysical view that all events within the universe (or multiverse) can occur only in one possible way.")
In a similar way, I think there is also space to pin down how we interpret meaning. One big central dichotomy I see when meaning is discussed is, where meaning comes from and how we achieve it. One narrative is that meaning is somewhere in the world and we have to find it, which is again the result of an external LoC. The other is that the we create meaning and we are the ones who put it in the world when we look at it and interact with it, an internal LoC. This could also somewhat be translated into practical reality as those with an external LoC tend to believe in an external God or anything else beyond our individual selves, while those with an internal one believe more in humanism. Both of these can fall into nihilism, one due to us being dissatisfied with the world around us and its perceived lack of meaning, other due to us being dissatisfied with our performance and inability to create it, also creating a lack of meaning.
This post was written as a reaction, as I feel like I see free will vs. determinism being brought up on this sub over and over and it never hits the mark at integrating the person thinking the thought with the thought itself. Hope this can provide a basis for reflection or further discussion.