My broker tried to get me into “alternative investments", including private equity

First off, I’m not that sophisticated of an investor. On a call about 4 months ago, my Merrill broker said he was sending a form for me to sign to start trading alternative investments, he might have called something else, but I had heard to be wary of it so I followed up with more questions. My worry came from watching a single YouTube video https://youtu.be/tfejqZXgayg?si=UM-\_jOmxIGyJRrIB But I don’t want to base my investment decision on streamers, so I wanted to get more info from him, basically asking if this was the same thing. He said crypto, private equity, a few more that I can’t remember now, but those two were enough to make me anxious. He said he would send a white paper and I enthusiastically said yes please but he never did, I never signed anything so I didn’t invest. Now I’m hearing about the trouble in private equity markets. So my questions- 1.) Was he giving me terrible advice or were alternative investments a sound plan 4 months ago? 2.) what are my options if I wanted a broker who doesn’t make commission? It’s hard to trust their advice even if it’s good if somebody else is putting money in their pocket. Would he even be getting commission off of this?