How many people would do so, though? How many non-technical people are capable of untangling themselves from Google’s services? How many non-technical people are even aware that “Google” isn’t the only search engine?

I learnt about Waze many years ago from non technical folks. Drivers have niche communities of their own too, where stuff like this gets disseminated.

“Waze is better than google maps for directions” for a long time was true. Then google bought it.

If Waze can rise up, so can another. Especially where it’ll save drivers some % on their fuel bills. Even more so in European countries with high fuel duties.

>[..]Then google bought it.[..]

And that will happen to every competitor on that market.

For non-technical people I would say it is much easier. Use another service that offers email, calendar and contacts (Germany is full of them) - done. For storage it's a little more complicated. Other than that, what do regular people use? Search? I've seen just as many use bing or what have you.

That's not the situation in the town where i live. There's less tax here compared to the city, gas prices should be lower, instead, every gas station in town is priced higher and all keep the same high price.

Years ago, the grocery stores here did the same thing. It's taken 15 years for them to finally begin to actually compete with each other...well just prior to covid anyway...

This is pretty standard due to transport + location costs, isn't it? Gas is close to cheapest in city suburbs.