Vimeo/Dailymotion not a replacement for youtube when the things you are interested aren't posted there.

I don't use Gmail to register with any other websites. I have a separate email for that.

> My email (gmail) is bound with so many services (both online and offline) and it is part of my online identity. It would be so much effort to change the email now.

This is the same effort I've undertaken in moving to FastMail (or any other similar service). It's not as bad as you think, just change your e-mail every time you log in to a new service. You don't have to do everything as once, but instead when you actual access the service.

I'm now to the point where I don't receive any important e-mail in Gmail anymore, and most (at least all important) of my online identities are now pointed at my personal email address.

This is the reason why it's so nice to manage your own domain, even if you were to decide to stay on gmail. You can always just point the domain to a new provider.

I've gone from Namecheap's solution to GSuite to ProtonMail to FastMail, all without an outage of any kind. Migrating previous conversations from ProtonMail was sort of difficult, though.

I switched off of Gmail a couple years ago after almost a decade with Gmail, in the same boat as you with my full online identity tied to it. Honestly, the realization that my identity was so tied to it is why I switched - I didn't want to lose my online identity at Google's whim.

The switch isn't as bad as you would think. It was pretty painless.

1. Compile a list of all your online accounts - if you use a password manager, you should already have this

2. Create a new email account on a service you trust, preferably at your own domain. That way, if you decide to switch providers later you can keep your address. I used Fastmail, and I'll cast my vote for them. (I believe Fastmail also has the ability to automatically import all your email from Gmail, although I took advantage of the switch to start fresh. I just downloaded a bulk archive of all my email).

3. Set up a vacation responder on your gmail address explaining your switch.

4. Change your email address on all your online accounts to your new address

5. After a period of time to make sure people are using your new email address, remove Gmail from your Google account. What's really cool about this is you can easily switch your Google ID for your existing Google account to your new email address, so you can continue to use any Google services as you wish without having them in control of your email/online identity.

NOTE: Even after removing Gmail from your Google account, you remain in control of that Gmail address - Google won't reassign it. You can reactivate it at any time (for example, if there was an account you forgot to switch). I've reactivated and re-deactivated mine several times.

It's really not bad, and much more painless that losing access to your Google account.

In other countries, you could start talking to people and prepare for your travel. Lookup a location on a map before you go there and learn to orient yourself. What is the purpose of travel if all you get more of the same because some algorithm found it "interesting" for whatever reason. About 10 years back people lived without smartphones. All you loose is some comfort. In turn you start using you brain again and gain features;)

Can't remember if everything was turned off at the beginning but i only have youtube activity enabled since i want to revisit it sometimes.