<< This feels like getting all the disadvantages but none of the advantages.

I couldn't have said it better. It's funny because I'm totally cool with having an account provided it does things like gives me access to software, drivers, tools, backups, whatever. But yeah, I'm not going for it if it's just an excuse to vacuum up data. It's gotten to the point where I actively avoid companies/products that just don't get the message.

To this point, I switched from Google to Microsoft a few years ago because I really got sick of feeling like my personal data was just making them richer in exchange for nothing. Email and web apps aren't worth the loss of privacy.

At first Bing search was a bit weird, but then it turned out that it worked just as well as Google for most things, and better for some.