The threat right now is from Meta, that is eyeing the fediverse, not Google.

For anyone paying attention, I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but it bears repeating: business models that treat the user as the product--to be sold, not catered to--is a cancer on the internet.

This ought to be a wakeup call in 2023. If you aren't the paying customer/supporter, you are less than dirt on the underside of the boot of the big tech firms. You are cattle, in a factory farm, to be treated like shit, only to be slaughtered for profit at the next opportunity.

Attitude's like "I don't care about ads" and "my data is worthless to me, so why not trade it in" all mask the more fundamental problem that is that you are being held in a cage full of shit, when in reality you could be roaming free in a pasture.