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[Jim Birch]

I'm actually reasonably happy with my deal with Google.

I pay nothing.  I see this as a double edged sword.  I would actually love
to pay for an ad free but cheap Google-like service that used a massive
client base to produce a cloud-based set of software services that were
aimed squarely at the client value rather than client service being the
carrot to produce advertiser value.  Unfortunately (or fortunately) biology
makes us suckers for "free" so this is would be difficult to set up and it
would probably be susceptible to "free" service offers.

Search filtering.  Is this a problem?  There are legions of "content"
creators out there producing junk that I really don't want to know about -
I've only got one life, not 10,000.  If my Google docs content, browsing
history, etc, helps Google to determine my interests for better searching I
like that.  It's possible to turn this feature off but I won't be doing
so.  It is also possible to delete your history at Google.

Reliability.  Google has the occasional outage - which they report - but
has had a high level of service.  I might be lucky but I've experienced (I
think) one availability issue in the last ten years which was actually a
redirection loop.  I won't compare with either home of business systems I
use.

Security.   Google would be right up there in my most-trusted list for
securing my data.  For example, my gmail and other Google services use two
factor authentication; my bank doesn't.  Google also allows 3rd party sites
to use Google authorisation which is a lot more secure - and easier - than
having a login and password on every two-bob site on the net that I might
want to use.

Data sharing.  Goggle doesn't share your data.  It uses your data to target
ads on third party sites but it doesn't on-sell your data to anyone.  Your
data is their value and they want to retain it.  There are a couple of
exceptions to this, eg, when open auth explicitly asks whether to pass
specific details to third party site, and some demographics reported back
to advertisers (theoretically non-identifying but susceptible to data
matching approaches.)

Openness.  Google is generally pretty open about what they are up to, they
use standards, they publish APIs, they open source a lot of stuff, etc.
Like everyone they can be cagey about their business plans.  You can
actually remove your data and history from Google and close your account.
Can you do that anywhere else?

Not everything about Google is completely wonderful but I'd rate them well
above most real alternatives.  I don't like living in a world dominated by
advertising for a number of reasons.  Neither am I keen on a world
dominated by enormous corporations.  However, AFAICS, the alternative these
things is regulation and government enterprises and, as we all know,
everyone loves to hate the government.

Jim