Understanding Bitcoin Nodes: Full Nodes vs Miners

The important thing is that it doesn’t matter which Bitcoin software you use what matters is following consensus rules. If a node does that, it’s part of the network.

And even if you're using a pruned node, you still start from the first block and download the full blockchain. Just means you save on disk space.

Exactly! Running a pruned node is about reducing storage, not about downloading less data.