It is a source of wonder to me that people still use Google anything.
It isn't just a matter of not caring about one's information being sold by Google, but of the aiding of the establishment of business models which predicate that functionality can only be had by relinquishing fundamental human rights, and, even more importantly, that one should not pay money for anything, no matter what the moral consequences are.
I want to pay for things because I don't want dodgy (shady, in US English) operators having to find morally dubious ways of generating profits, because those ways become the norm, and fund our workforce, and thus become the unholy glue which binds our increasingly selfish and unprincipled societies.
Increasing amounts of people worldwide depend for their livelihood on companies which operate under business models that rely on misinformation and obfuscation. The wealth of pension funds, financial markets and even whole countries, are incrementally connected to these companies, and regulators, investors, and citizens often can only watch as these companies make a mockery of their laws and social fabric.
I feel terrible because I yet lack the technical nous to completely erase Google’s presence in my life, mainly because other people's utter surrender to it make it difficult for me to interact liberally and seamlessly with other users, without jumping through a lot of hoops to avoid Google by proxy.
How anyone would actually allow any Google application to be directly installed on the devices they paid a fortune for, and which, although far from perfect, offer the highest protection available against the nefarious intents of companies like Google, Facebook, and of unscrupulous arrivistes, like Cambridge Analytica and others, is beyond my comprehension.
Apologies for the long comment. x
