My takeaway from that is to never spend more than a few quid (i.e. money I'd care about losing) on anything linked that directly to Google.
Google no. I am very very close to being able to kill my google account though I probably will just leave it parked.
Believe it or not Google Voice is the one thing holding me at the moment. Nobody offers the same quality service period, let alone free. Come at me HN, I'm open to alternatives. Google Voice also has one killer feature nobody else has; the ability to make and receive calls using your carrier voice service and not DATA. Generally a higher quality connection that on most plans these days is unlimited, where as a lot of plans still count data usage whether it's a "unlimited" (but throttled) account or not.
OpenPhone is the closest I've found and seems their customer service is horrible, I see people on reddit complaining about them all the time.
I still have a shared calendar on Google but only because I can't convince my wife to try something different. I used to be all-in on Google but have spent the past 2 years getting away as much as I can.
I hear OSM has some decent map and navigation solutions now, but for me Apple maps long ago passed the touring test. I only trust that Apple with all their positions and statements on privacy will suffer irreparable harm if it is discovered they sell user behavioral data like google blatantly does.
It's the lack of a central, accountable point of contact for everything under the "Google Account" that's the real problem. Since its very beginning Google has been bad at consumer relationships.
My point is that to avoid even having to consider this choice to make by never doing anything that I might ever want to charge back. Separation of concerns: don't do (significant) money stuff with Google, then money stuff can't affect your other uses of Google.
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[0] Some have a lot of contacts who know them at their @gmail address, getting people to update your contact info when you deliberately change address can be enough of a faf, imagine having to do it without warning. Some also have other accounts where they login via Google, they need to make sure those are transferred to something else (if possible).
[1] I have nothing irreplaceable in Google's sphere (my phone contacts & other content is backed up there, but not only there) though there are a few shared photo albums and so forth that I interact with using that account.
[2] Even if you intend to move away from Google or other large multi-pie-fingered company, and are actively doing so, you want to do that at your conveniences not with them chucking you out in an automated hissy-fit.