I am moving to more and more self hosted and open source things. My hardware is moving to things like raspberry pi’s. My next phone will be a pixel, so I can install that open source OS, I will need to figure out what I am going to do about replacing my iPad.
I use a self hosted Nextcloud to store files, contacts, and calendars. I use a self hosted Immich to host my pictures. I own a few domains one that I am using to learn more about self hosting and one that my blog and email is on, both are hosted in Canada using CIRA the Canadian register. With my emails I create a new email address for every service so that I can easily find out who has leaked my data or sold it off to Google or who ever and just shut down the address. I use a pihole setup in my home lab to block ads, trackers, and sites I do not want to visit. I self host searXNG to replace all the search engines that are trying to harvest my data, sure it scraps from the Google and a few other engines (I do not remember what I have turned on) but no one but me sees it. I tried to figure out how to use peertube, but that failed so I use Unwatched on my iOS devices to block most of Google’s tracking while I am on Youtube, and I sail the high seas for other media.
No need to apologize a lot of Big Tech is in the US, and it is harder for people to see the forest through the trees. Open Source Software is huge, people have been saying this is the year for Linux for many years now, but with Microslops royal F ups recently and the world starting to trust the US less and less Linux may be having a surge do not know if it is the year of Linux yet but we are getting there.
The fact that you are on Lemmy rather than Reddit, shows that open source is really going places. Lemmy is run off of the Fediverse an open source standard that hosts things like mastodon and lemmy, I am sure there are more but they are just escaping me right now.
My first suggestion is stop paying for services, buy paying I do not mean with just money but with your eyeballs. Get a good whole home ad/tracker blocker, I started with pihole and have added add-on features to make things better from everything I have seen my current pihole setup is better than the basic Adguard Home setup many will say they switched from pihole to adguard home and it is better, but from all the reviews I have seen my setup is better than the basic adguard home setup. You do not need to go as extreme as I have with email, just get off of gmail and learn about email aliasing. I really plan on self hosting my own email stuff and blog in the not to distant future.
The masses are not yet ready to jump ship from big tech but it is coming.