"Google does not care about their users". Well.. I am not sure about that
Google cares about its customers, not its users. Google users and Google customers are two different entities.
but there is always the option of not using Google products, or using as few as possible Google products.
A New York Times columnist tried this maybe a year or two ago. With the help of an expert, tried to go completely Google-free, meaning no access to any Google API. It turned out to be impossible, since so many apps, programs, and services rely on Google behind the scenes for everything from flight data to CAPTCHA.
> Google users and Google customers are two different entities.
Google hardly cares about their customers as well, unless you are big enough to make a dent in their income, which you are not. The number of people paying for gsuite who never managed to get a hold of an actual human after a brutal and unwarranted termination of their online life is quite big, if you expect them to care about their customers.
I pay Google for phones, home devices, a YouTube subscription, extra cloud storage... if you are made uncomfortable by the deal of getting an amazing suite of products without paying for any of it then perhaps you can quell your unease by becoming a paying customer.
Even if you are too frugal to part with any of your cash, your statement, besides being worn and trite, is plainly false. Without users (even the free tier), Google goes out of business, which is decidedly an anti goal.
You are gleefully ignoring the nearly weekly posts here about people getting locked out of all their Google services for terms of service violations that make no sense. Google has no support mechanisms.
My personal experience with an anti-spam service that got bought by Google and was cancelled was awful, as the "replacement" service was missing features that the one I was paying for originally had. More recently I tried for months to report a widespread Google Maps software issue to no avail where Streetview data was inaccessible. I had to resort to getting someone that works at Google to report the issue internally after which is was fixed within a few weeks.
It really is true that Google treats their users like garbage. The pretty much follows when users are merely an expense to be minimized in the quest to sell more ads.
Google cares about its customers, not its users. Google users and Google customers are two different entities.
but there is always the option of not using Google products, or using as few as possible Google products.
A New York Times columnist tried this maybe a year or two ago. With the help of an expert, tried to go completely Google-free, meaning no access to any Google API. It turned out to be impossible, since so many apps, programs, and services rely on Google behind the scenes for everything from flight data to CAPTCHA.