I don't think there is an alternative to google maps which is in the same level as quality and richness in information. I would be totally lost without google maps when I'm traveling to other countries, especially when it comes to public transportation like tram, U-bahn and busses.
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.
This is really interesting.
You mean I could change your `google account` email to a non-google domain just like other internet services? Was not sure about what you meant by "Google ID"
If that is true, I probably want to take advantage of this before they remove it.
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.
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.