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Oh man, I left Gmail 6-7 years ago for different reasons (a total overhaul & hardening of my personal privacy/ security posture), but kudos to you! Get away and don’t look back, you won’t regret it! I’d recommend de-googling your life of all their services, you really don’t need them. There are good, more privacy respecting options for just about everything except maps. Google Maps is the one service I still use constantly.

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I wish it was the same for e.g. SEO.

Meta and Google ads are kind of a must. It's the only service I cannot replace.

But for everyday humans, Google and Meta are the dark clouds in the sky you can just ignore, you do not need to stand in the rain. No one's making you.

Yeah that makes sense, I didn’t consider advertising

There are very good map alternatives, like Organic Maps and HERE WeGo. But Google's place data is such a good moat that I'm also still using it.

Yeah I don’t use it for navigation, but for exploring your local area, finding restaurants, retail or other businesses it’s hard to ignore unfortunately

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