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Evaluating Google’s Hold on Our Digital Lives
Should you stay or should you go
I’m not much of a social media person. I ditched Facebook quite some time ago. I had gotten pulled into a political disagreement with a relative on the site, and since that time, I haven’t been on it at all. It is a cesspool. I also left Twitter after it became X since I don’t like Elon Musk, nor was the site what it was before Musk was forced to take it over.
But this isn’t about Facebook, X, or Elon Musk. It’s about something more benign. It’s about Reddit, and more specifically, the subreddit r/degoogle and my thoughts and experiences trying to de-Googling.
Initially, I found this subreddit to be interesting. I share their concerns about Google’s invasion of privacy.
It primarily focuses on alternatives to Google’s apps and services, but secondarily, there are numerous discussions about why people are attempting to limit their use of those Google apps and services.
Many of the arguments are valid and should be considered, such as the fact that Google uses your data to show you targeted ads. I don’t think anyone will dispute that this is what Google does — advertising is their primary business.
What I think is lost in their arguments is that the majority of subscribers are using…
