Yes, Google is using Gmail specifically for this purpose. Once you use Gmail on an Android device, it installs a Google account with all its consequences like getting the list of all your contacts, tracking you in Google apps and so on. For that reason I tried several alternative apps that don't involve adding a Google account to my device, but they were less comfortable to use - specifically, the search function was subpar.

If you use 3rd part clients for Google services - YT, Gmail, Calendar, etc. and run non-Chrome browser (Firefox is very good on Android, and supports many extensions) you can largely avoid Google. However, Play and Location sharing are much harder to block.

I love FF on Android (it's my primary browser there), but there is a serious limitation on what extensions can be installed now. I think you're limited to only a certain curated list of like 12 extensions. Thankfully, uBlock is one of them, but I miss some of my others.

You can install firefox beta or nightly and use developer tools access to add extension collection from your choice which will replace these recommended extensions.

Note : you must create this collection on firefox addon or find existing one as you will need the collection ID.

Does anyone know what the benifit is to Firefox to create such a roundabout workaround? Why Google makes things difficult and obscure is clear, but why does Firefox care what add-ons you install on your phone?

Majority of any browser users are not tech people so making these workaround easier would confuse those users as most of the plugins are not written with mobile aspects into consideration (Even their mobile API is not complete yet).

afaik a lot of extensions aren't fully supported yet. I tried about a dozen different tab managers on FF Nightly, none of them worked. I'm guessing the Tab API or something isn't fully ported yet

Not all of the APIs on mobile are production ready yet, so these options are for developers to try their add-ons.

addons are usually hyper tunnel visioned around desktop users and almost none of their ui's work on mobile the way the developers of those extensions originally intended.

ublock and the other featured apps essentially had to adapt to the mobile firefox way of doing stuff and opening settings in a separate mobile ff tab etc.

Oh, that's right! I had totally forgotten about that method.

If you want an alternative to the Play Store client, Aurora Store is quite excellent. It can be acquired on F-Droid.

I know you are most likely referring to Play services, but still worth noting for folks who may not know it exists as an option. I suppose for the latter, microG may offer a useful option.

You can delete Youtube and open it in Firefox, if you want in a private tab.

You could try using Island or similar to create a "work profile", and only log into Google and install Gmail (or Drive or whatnot) in the work profile. This way, apps running in the regular profile don't see your Google account.

If you cannot uninstall the youtube app, you should be able to freeze it (with adb).

(then take a look at youtube vanced)

NewPipe is an excellent YouTube client. (Though you should add their repo instead of using the outdated version that comes with fdroid.)

+ for Youtube Vanced. Basically, there is no reason to use Google's YT app these days.

The other solution is to stop using Gmail and switch to something like Fastmail.

GMail is still SMTP and IMAP compliant. One can simply switch the client. Not as good from the privacy perspective, but takes minimum effort.