[lucideer]

100% agree. Apple gets a lot of flak for lock-in, and they are bad, but nowhere near as bad as Google.

I've run an Android phone without any Google account at all (something that's not possible on iOS), using a combination of FDroid and Yalp to work around the lack of Play. The fact that this is possible lulls people into this idea that Google is more open, but the reality is it's pain. You're locked out of many basic phone features, notifications are flakey, many updates don't work, and once you do opt into a Google account it invades every part of your phone's experience.

At least with iOS I can sign up for a fresh empty apple account and it leaves the rest of the (admittedly limited and very locked down) phone to me.