Privacy was the reason it started, but I was also constantly bothered by the growing annual profits they earned from people basically giving away access to their information and livelihoods for free. I realized how valuable our information is, and the only way to break this deepening centralization and control of it, was to take it all back. Self-hosting and supporting FOSS are my methods to regain control in this war. It has become a sort of holy war for me at this point. Lol
Privacy is a concern but not the primary concern. Google is too big to be in your life. If you use Google it’s in everything. If Google ever kicks you out your life is going to be very difficult while you rebuild your entire digital profile. Google’s too much of a risk.
Not to mention Google is demonstrated they will kill services at the drop of a hat. So relying on them is asking for trouble.
Google heavily uses algorithms to identify accounts to delete or block or ban. And this goes back to if your entire digital life is tied to Google and they do block you, you have no recourse. Google doesn’t talk to humans for reconsideration. You’re just out of luck.
Google is too much of a risk for a stable life
Always make a new account for every website, never sign in via your Google account, Microsoft account, etc. It was a neat feature when it came out, but it’s just too much of a risk.
Primarily. Secondarily, to avoid putting all my eggs in one basket. As in, not using one singular network of services, and instead spreading it out. Diversify yo services.
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As a general rule, I also hate monopolies
I also want to avoid being too dependent on Google’s service and then get locked behind a paywall or something. One never knows.
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same.
I control the distribution of power in the tech world. I am God.
Primarily yes, however a few other reasons are that i like FOSS, see no advertising (thanks to controld dns), and it makes midrange phones run much better than they would with all that crap in the background.
It started as a privacy thing but as I dug deeper, I found that all of the foss alternatives I found were simply much better in terms of functionality & usability
Privacy is my biggest thing. But, no. Then there’s the whole “I don’t to put all my eggs in one basket” argument too. Last, but not least: my battery life is also much better when all of the invasive tracking is blocked :)
Especially when the person carrying the basket like to chuck eggs out of it at random. Never know when google will discontinue a service.
Most seem to mention privacy. Choice as important as privacy. Do things your own way. Selecting the services you want to do common things on your device. As I went along I realised how deep google enforcement was and how hard they made choice for users. That made me want to rip off even more google from the device. I came to a state that I host every service I run my self.
That’s why it’s called a walled garden. If you’re enjoying the garden, you don’t notice the walls. Until the day you get tired of it, try to leave, and suddenly you realize just how high the walls have gotten when you weren’t paying attention.
That’s partially why the Integrity bullshit with chromium is worrying: the average user will not appreciate the issue until it really affects them, and by that point, it will be far too late.
It was secondary to challenging big tech corporations and their abuses to the Global South.
Ads. I am not interested in content that paid the most for Ads. I’m looking for content that exists not to make money for the website, or the person creating that content. So given those things, Google provides negative value to me.