I think duckduckgo often becomes an alternative that isn't an alternative, in the sense yes its there, you are frustrated with Google's behavior and you persist for a whole day and then have to revert back to Google with tail behind legs so it's more of an alternative in name.

With the sheer scope of Google properties there is always going to be a tempation for 'value searchers' within the organization to give in to dark patterns and compromise users. I have been trying Yandex search and email and its fairly decent. Email is good, search appears to be a much more serious offering compared to duckduckgo but still some way to go.

However we need diversity and decentralization to prevent concentration and inevitable abuse of power.