Sure, I could go the full de-google route. But with each step towards more privacy you sacrifice a little bit of usability and convenience. And I think everyone should find the level she/he is satisfied with.

I could use Linux, but I’m “still” using Windows because I’m a gamer. And gaming is more important than privacy for me.

I could use LibreWolf/Mullvad Browser instead of Firefox, but they both had very stuttery scrolling on my 165 Hz monitor and I like using Firefox Sync. With Android Chromium based browsers I had problems with the filled in data from Bitwarden and security updates often take quite a long time to be released.

I could use NewPipe, but I’d rather pay for YouTube premium to support the video creators.

I could use ntfy (didn’t hear about this before), but I’m sure there are some problems that don’t exists with GMS. I can imagine that the battery consumption is higher when using both GMS and ntfy for example (?). Or that there would be some delays with received notifications (?).

The list goes on and on. I really like trying out new FOSS apps, but I wanted to state that there are often not only upsides when using them :-)…

I’m more in a middle ground there. When there is an alternative that offers a similar experience to a Google (or other big company) app, I will use it. But sometimes there isn’t and then I’m okay with it.

Kagi, Proton, Signal/Threema, … are all really great and I use them as alternatives to their Google/Meta counterparts, but for some apps there are no alternatives (for me).

For example Google Maps: I drive quite a lot and need real time traffic data. Magic Earth also has some data, but it is not nearly as good and it sometimes suggests very questionable routes.