Black2Life

Ownership meant a physical copy. Now you own nothing and can't find what you want across multiple streaming platforms.

TIFFANY STUDIOS 'Lotus' Table Lamp

It took less than 5 minutes to switch to a ProtonMail account, less than 2 hours to download and/or offload every byte of data from my Google account, and less than 3 days to change every single account or service I've ever signed up for to the new address.

As of today, the only single one I have that's still tied to it is YouTube. It's the only thing I'd lose access to if I deleted my Google acount entirely.

They really, really want you to believe that it's a hassle to switch to a different email system. But it's not. Most websites and/or services allow you to change the email address associated with it.

You can and should switch to a free, encrypted Proton email account. You also get all of the below perks. For free. There is no trick. It is paid for by the people with paying plans. I am one of them. The (completely functional) free tier is there to entice you into getting a paid account with even more perks. (It worked on me.) But there's no penalty or pressure for staying with the free account.

Also get your stuff off the google drive and put it on Proton's drive. It is encrypted. Only you with your password can access it. Not even Proton can see what you put in there.

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Anyway other than that yes all of this!! I've made a proton account and am slowly transitioning over instead of all at once - any time I log in somewhere, I change the email after and update my password manager. When I get an email from a service I try to remember to log in and change it. Takes longer overall to get rid of google than doing it all at once, but it's a lot more sustainable for me.

Also Proton imported all 16 years of emails from gmail for me, with like, three clicks. It gets all my emails forwarded so I still see stuff from my gmail address, but I'm hoping that I can slow those forwarded emails to a trickle over time.