[Diti]

> I would never pay for search.

I’m curious, why not? The amount of time and frustration saved seems insane, which seems to be a net positive, unless you can’t afford it of course (which is a good argument, but I’m not seeing any in your comment).

[drnick1]

Because there are free and privacy respecting alternatives. I use DuckDuckGo, but you can also use meta-engines that anonymize traffic like SearXNG. None of these require accounts or payment methods that effectively de-anonymize you. Finally, if you really like Google for some reason but don't want the side effects, use an adblocker and a VPN.