[bbutterworth]

If everyone did this, google wouldn't exist, a lot of the open source google software wouldn't exist. Isn't the main point of de-googling, is that everyone does it. Because you can be influenced indirectly even if you do de-google, and that the benefits of de-googling should emerge with popularity. I'm sure some people are de-googling because of personal privacy, but most people aren't targets so this doesn't matter. One of the benefits I can see is that it reduces the quality to the users, and the value to the large companies. That way, data/ power is not consolidated, and we have privacy by segregation.

In summary, I don't see the purpose of de-googling as an individual. And if de-google collectively, we're all worse off. And yet I de-googled last year.

PS: I use Brave, Android, flutter & duck.com, which only exists to its quality today because of Google.

[ForHackernews]

> but most people aren't targets so this doesn't matter

What do you mean? Everyone on the planet is a target. They want data on everyone so they can target ads to everyone.

[bbutterworth]

Oops, by 'target', I meant on the receiving end of exploitation (governments/ politics/ free speech). You might consider targeted adverts exploitation, but I didn't include that in the use of 'target', because I think people prefer targeted adverts and can just turn them off anyway.