I run my own mail servers on my own domains. I use my own private "cloud" server for storing photos, documents, file sync, contacts, emails, events and everything else. I have minimized my contact with anything Google as much as I can. I have a couple of different Google accounts because I _need_ to have those accounts for work, or a developer account, but I have reduced any connection with Google to just background noise at this point.
Owning and running an email server is a great undertaking. However a lot of email providers will give you the option to use your own domain with their service. Gmail (Workspace) and Fastmail have it and it's pretty straightforward to setup. Even setting up DKIM and SPF is pretty easy.
Also having a backup of the email messages is very handy.
Agreed, it isn't for most people. I have a mail server running on my main hosting server that I have complete control over, with certificates and so forth to make it trustworthy. Then I have an in-home mail server that acts as a proxy, which pulls in all the email from the main server, so that when I type in mail.justinlloyd.domain I end up on a page that looks very much like Google's gmail. And of course, multiple backups of the servers in multiple locations. But this isn't for everyone.
