Most of my strategy relies on a home server (full disk encrypted), a server I colocate nearby (also full disk encrypted) and backups.
Email: I use Gmail my own domain and regularly backup my email to my home server. In the even that something happens to my Google account, there are only issues for a few hours while DNS updates propagate.
Chat: After getting fed up with Facebook Messenger, I set up a hosted Prosody server on one of my dedicated servers and use it to communicate with my wife using the Conversations XMPP client for Android.
Photos: I auto sync photos from my phone to Google Photos and frequently (through Google Drive) pull them back down to my home server. My home server backs these up to Google Drive (unencrypted), Amazon Cloud Drive (encrypted) and my colocated server.
Drive: The home and colocated servers give me a ton of storage to do whatever I want with. I've never used a proper "sync" client however, so this isn't a good idea for everyone.
Search: DuckDuckGo is pretty good and I use it whenever I don't want to use Google for any reason.
Generally: I'm happy to use Google's services as:
- They're convenient
- Google operates in and is regulated in so many jurisdictions that I'm confident it's no less protective of my privacy/data than any other US based company
- It's not going away any time soon
- Tools like TakeOut make it incredibly easy to leave