One does not simply quit Google - If you’re not a techie. Sure, you can use Firefox and switch to Duck Duck Go like 90% of the folks who “quit” Google and call it a day, but that’s not doing much.

Lifehacker has the right idea here, interviewing Janet Vertesi. The first big problem is, as she says, “You don’t jump out of the frying pan into someone else’s frying pan,” yet that’s the only option most folks have: switching from Android to iPhone. It’s just another company that owns all your data.

Installing a custom ROM on an Android device is not something most people can do (or keep living with), and even that is only the beginning. Your cell phone number belongs to your carrier, which has you on file along with your address and credit card. It’s just another pan. Even if you get over that, say by paying cash for a cheaper phone every month, you still need to figure out how to get Android apps working on a device without Google’s framework underneath. For the non-techies, it quickly gets overly complicated and non-functional.

As this article points out, sometimes you can’t quit Google services even if you want to. For example, if your work is tied to Google products, you don’t have much choice.

The point is, it’s not easy. There aren’t good alternatives. And I don’t think articles titled “How to Quit Google” help much.