I'd be quite pleased for ALL the big companies to point out their competitors' anti-competitive practices.
Edit: For context, the parent commenter was saying something similar to "The pot calling the kettle black"
But I haven’t seen Google do anything this egregious. But I’m in the cloud space.
Perhaps my Drive files are recoverable. (Except, of course, for the linchpin Docs/Sheets/Slides.) The main issue I found with Takeout is, there's no corresponding "Import" function anywhere, to anyone, not even Google themselves!
At least 3 times, I've started projects in one Google account, then had a need to move that specific stuff into another. Takeout won't do it. Lossy exports means that you're leaving significant data behind, especially in YouTube and whatnot. Anything with timestamps or historical, how would that work? I basically found myself starting from scratch, losing metadata and manually recreating things like playlists and Maps lists. Photos? Forget it!!!
There's no export for settings or preferences, and certainly no import or programmatic management. You get comfortably ensconced in Workspaces, and there's no exit strategy.
Compare that to when I set up a new Google Pixel: it automagically cloned itself from my Motorola, without very much warning or consent, it had all my preferences and accounts in the blink of an eye. Granted, this was beneficial and welcome, but I doubt that the process would've been smooth if I'd chosen an iPhone.
Export functions usually anticipate the format of the importing system: "do you want this contact exported in Outlook format, Apple, Google?" "Calendar export for iCal, etc." "Image export in jpg, png, webp format?" "Save as PDF, .docx?" So it's utterly strange to be exporting stuff where there's no complementary import function, like at all. Like Google itself has no such thing. You can't import back to Photos, or YouTube, or Gmail, or Workspaces. Forget it. Upload new content or GTFO. That's just lock-in.
But it's more like "malicious compliance": "here's your data! it's really yours! we let you have it! good luck now!"
I see that there are some guides on how to use Photos Takeout data and merge it back into something useful, reconstruct an EXIF or whatever, but they seem quite ad hoc and that addresses only one out of many products/services. There's simply no way to recreate YouTube accounts.
I've often simply built a playlist in one account, and/or I subscribed to dozens of channels, then I've got an alt account and I want to migrate all that over. There's no possible recourse but manually reconstructing all of it, click by click.
Sure, not Google's concern, I suppose. They've got your data, they don't need to offer Takeout service at all. It's mystifying to me why they would, other than checking a compliance box. It would seem that if "Import" were easier they would gain more users going through there, yes? Unusable exports are painless to them, because they can be sure no customers would just set up shop on MS 365 in an hour, but lack of Import functions must be detrimental to adoption rates.