[zeveb]

> Search, which hinges on the ability to scan and index your files, is a canonical example.

Of course, search can all run locally on one's own devices. I believe that there are also privacy-preserving search techniques which can run remotely, albeit often with an unacceptable overhead.

Frankly, I would rather have local indexing and search anyway: it is significantly faster, and I am likelier to have more spare resources to dedicate to myself than Google is to have to dedicate for my use. What I mean by that latter point is that while Google are huge (1.18T right now), they must spread their resources over many, many users (that number divided by the number of people on earth — a decent first approximation for their number of users) is only $155, and I have way more than $155 to invest in my infrastructure.