It is possible for most people to live their lives without Facebook's Apps.
It is not possible for most people to live their lives without some form of Google, whether it's search, email, drive, maps, docs, or calendar. It's almost impossible to function today without using Google or interfacing with someone who is using Google.
People are more OK with Google because there is no alternative.
Don't forget YouTube! I sort of agree but I think this is changing for better as competition improves. If I were to rate google services in order of importance and lack of decent competition, it would be:
I put YouTube as 0 as it is at the very top of the list. There's virtually no comparable competition for YouTube and that's why Google is also getting away with abusing their power with YouTube trending feed, censorship, demonetization, clickbait etc. YouTube really needs some proper competition but I really doubt any company will want to take over this massive infrastructure. I don't consider Twitch to be a competition for YouTube for non-gaming content.
Maps is the only one which I cannot live without. Apple Maps has improved drastically in the last couple years though but in Canada, they are still not as good as Google. But they seem to be on the right track.
DuckDuckGo is pretty good actually and I think most people can get the job done pretty well with it. For email, there are okay competitions and I still have an alternate yahoo email but they have been going downhill in last few years.
Docs is one place where Microsoft Office is good but Docs is superior if online collaboration is needed.
Dropbox is superior to google drive imo, especially since I am on iOS and Mac.
I have never used Google Calendar as I use iOS offerings and it does pretty well.
I think if Apple can improve their Maps and if Siri stops being so useless, it would be for the better and will help take away some power from Google. And somebody really needs to compete heavily against YouTube.
I totally forgot about YouTube, but that is a great point.
There is no good alternative to Google maps on Android IMO.
I've tried
- HERE: the app is not great and I'm not sure it's any more private than Google.
- OsmAndroid: as a map it is fine. It doesn't do address searches very well which makes it useless when you need to get somewhere you haven't been before.
If anyone has a suggestion I'd greatly appreciate it.
It is not possible for most people to live their lives without some form of Google, whether it's search, email, drive, maps, docs, or calendar. It's almost impossible to function today without using Google or interfacing with someone who is using Google.
People are more OK with Google because there is no alternative.