I refrained for a very long time from using facebook and whatsapp - but relented to using them. I also actively researched ways to get rid of the google ecosystem - but what i realised is that, you cannot be on another ecosystem, if people whom you want to communicate with are using the very ecosystem you want to avoid. Its a collective problem and unless everyone is aware of the perils of using them, people who care / worry about these things are in the minority and unable to convince the majority to refrain from using google / facebook.
I have been getting a lot of stares for suggesting to people to not use facebook.(I finally put a facebook profile last year but am not active on it. I rarely login to facebook).
All the people i wanna communicate with are on whatsapp - i have no hopes of convincing people to switch over to signal and i have given up this pursuit.
I am tired of endless conversations to explain to people about the "bubble" and also the privacy issues that come along with using these products (we are the product anyway).
Worse, after all the convincing arguments i submit to people, people nod in acknowledgement and use those very products anyway. It's like noone cares. And i found myself increasingly isolated for quite some time, and finally relented to using fb(rarely)/whatsapp(use it like an sms app
- i have exited all the groups).