didn’t see anyone touching on the most important part, and that is the decisions regarding our data we make now are coming to bite us in the ass five or ten years from now. our chicken brains can’t comprehend that, not really. we need a direct feedback loop: hot stove, finger, ouch - no more touching.

up until a decade or two ago, we didn’t have the concept of forever in our lives. do stupid shit in school, in uni they don’t know about it. fail at one job, the next one doesn’t know about it. say something stupid in front of a love interest, the next one’s blissfully unaware. in our current paradigm, all of them transgressions are with you, forever.

any and all corporations even adjacent to the advertising/harvesting/mining industries have lost the benefit of doubt, forever. our interaction with them is and should be adversarial from the get go. they should never be in the position to retain any meaningful data points and polluting their ingestion avenues and obscuring activity is mandatory.

edit: the AI example is touching on it.

I started degoogling because of Google’s more and more transparent business plan of data surveillance. I’m not comfortable with “paying with my information” because of the uncountable (and frankly unimaginable) ways that information can be applied by third parties without my knowledge.

“AI” is one example which wasn’t even on the chart when I started degoogling, but we can all be certain that Google and partners use any language sample available on Gmail and G drive to train theirs. This is the company that casually registered private WiFi networks in the course of mapping their Maps street view. They’ll harvest everything they can.

At heart, I don’t trust corporate mega-monopolies to take care of our best interests as online citizens, and as a European I’m super sceptical of becoming subject to less safe legislation (US, Chinese or whatever) that doesn’t offer me protections that I have or expect at home.

By not using Google (or Meta, or Amazon, or X) I can deliberately pick and choose individual services — or host them for myself — rather than hedge everything on the benevolence of one corporation that doesn’t give a shit about their users.

Basically once they started being a military contractor actively implementing new AI solutions aiding Israel, the US, and more. Or, when they started doing evil instead of avoiding it.

(Please don’t @ me with all the “yeah but they did THIS AND THAT years ago… we all have our own cutoff point).

If Google randomly decides to terminate my account for some reason and won’t tell me why or allow me to reasonably appeal, I’m screwed.

GDrive, my YouTube, my play store purchases, my Gmail going back since forever, and even all these 3rd party sites where I used “login with Google” could be instantly toasted and irrecoverable.

I became aware that this is way way too much exposure to one company and every component is linked together so if, hypothetically, I left a comment on YouTube that triggered some angsty AI ban algorithm, which led to the whole account getting zapped, I would be one sad puppy.

Better to selfhost, encrypt all, and be in control of my own destiny.

The advertising has become the engine in every possible corner. It’s like searching billboards now, not websites. My email feeds the ads I get. My Gboard keyboard for my text messages feeds the ads I’m shown. Hell the websites I visit get advertised back to me. Google Lenovo for work reasons and a year later I’m still getting fed ads for Lenovo on other platforms that have no association with Google. It’s like the Adoring fan of Oblivion who really really wants to make me happy by offering me things he heard me mention once Every. Single. Day! Dude stop! Shut up and leave me the fuck alone.

I wish I could shove Google off a cliff.

1. I’m trying to be more anti-large corporation, especially those that have bent the knee to Trump.
2. I want to support the people who make replacement apps/services that have a DIY ethic about them.
3. I kind of like the challenge of it, because it’s not all that easy…which in my mind shows that it’s necessary.

If you don’t want to DeGoogle, that’s fine. It’s a personal decision. If you have all the facts and determine you’d rather stay doing what you’re doing, that’s fine.

There’s the privacy and constant tracking part of it, but it is also about not being hostage of the company. What if Drive is suddenly a payed-only service OR they lock me out of my account? I can recover faster and cheaper from a failing HDD in my NAS than I ever could from a locked (or deleted) Google account.

I’ve seen / was burned too many times by free software and services that suddenly disappeared of became overpriced and I don’t want to be on that position again. Google is well known for killing stuff as well.

Google has moved far away from “do no evil”.

I feel like I’m always being watched - just to make some rich person richer.

I don’t like ads, they’re a menace to society, I will find something if I need it.

They have too much control in the world.

It’s not just Google. But we don’t need any of them. It’d be better if they didn’t exist.

They help maintain the surveillance state. What more do you need?

Nothing is free. If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product.

Privacy (different from anonymity) has become more and more important to me, and Google had access to nearly every part of my life in one way or another. I’ve cut out Musk, Zuck and Bezos, and I’m now nearly completely Google free as well.

I’ve often heard “why do I care if Google reads my emails? I’ve got nothing to hide”. 2 great answers:

1. Unlock your phone and give it to me for an hour. Just because you have nothing to hide doesn’t mean you don’t want privacy. Google does exactly that.

2. Speaking of privacy, why bother closing the stall door in a public washroom? You’re not doing anything wrong in there.

My data is my data. Period. Or at least it should be.
Abuse of position as dominant provider of search engine (incl. censorship) and mobile OS.
Labour Practice.
e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google

Similiar reasons apply to Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, PayPal, X and so on since well before Trump & Co.
e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech

Appologies for my aggressive tone. I really hate these companies / their owners and what they are doing to our society, wellbeing, and humanness. It could have turned out so much different, if not for their greed and egoism!

@CheeseToastie Spending my money in autocratic countries is like buying them the weapons they will point at me to take away my freedom.

Giving my data to them is pretty much the same as they monetize it.

Moving away from US based/owned/managed services. But it takes times. Email and photos are the Hardest for me. Email because of all the account integrations and many accounts where you just can’t change your email address and photos as it requires all people involved in shared albums to migrate with me.

Companies like google collects, stores and shares data on you.

I don’t want someone looking over my shoulder analyzing, interpreting and announcing to the world what I do all the time. I also don’t want a permanent record of that to exist. It hurts me when done to me. It hurts society when done to everyone. An example where it hurts you is when you go the insurance company and they deny you or make it expensive cause they have data on you, your behaviour, health and opinions.

It will also be used against you when your government decides they are no longer going to respect human rights or cracking down on the citizenry. They migh feed a big pool of data to an ai and the ai gives you a shitty social score. Nothing is forgotten and it will be missused and missinterpreted. Never for your benefit.

Tracking people across the internet ought to be forbidden by law.